THE  MIRROR   LIBRARY, 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE, 


BY 


N.  P.  WILLIS. 


PREFACE. 

THE  "  Letters  from  under  a  Bridge"  were  written  in  a  secluded  glen  of  the  valley  of  the  Susqueliannah. 
The  author  after  several  years  residence  and  travel  abroad,  made  there,  as  he  hoped,  an  altar  of  life-time 
tranquillity  for  his  household-gods.  Most  of  the.  letters  were  written  in  the  full  belief  that  he  should  pass 
there  the  remainder  of  his  days.  Inevitable  necessity  drove  him  again  into  active  metropolitan  life,  and  the 
remembrance  of  that  enchanting  interval  of  repose  and  rural  pleasure  seems  to  him,  now,  little  but  a  dream. 
As  picturing  truly  the  color  of  his  own  mind,  and  the  natural  flow  of  his  thoughts  during  a  brief  enjoyment 
of  the  kind  of  life  alone  best  suited  to  his  disposition  as  well  as  to  his  better  nature,  the  book  is  interesting 
to  himself  and  to  those  who  love  him.  As  picturing  faithfully  the  charm  of  nature  and  seclusion,  after  years 
of  intoxicated  life  in  the  gayest  circles  of  the  gayest  cities  of  the  world,  it  may  be  curious  to  the  reader. 


LETTER  I. 

Mr  DEAR  DOCTOR  :  Twice  in  the  year,  they  say, 
the  farmer  may  sleep  late  in  the  morning— between 
hoein<r  and  haying,  and  between  harvest.and  thrash 
ing.     If  I  have  not  written  to  you  since  the  frost  was 
out  of  the  ground,  my  apology  lies  distributed  over 
the  "spring-work,"  in  due  proportions  among  plough 
ing,  harrowing,  sowing,  plastering,  and  hoeing.     We| 
have  finished  the  last — some  thanks  to  the  crows,  who  i 
saved  us  the  labor  of  one  acre  of  corn,  by  eating  it  in  I 
the  blade.     Think  what  times  we  live  in,  when  even  ] 
the  cro-,vs  are  obliged  to  anticipate  their  income ! 

When  1  had  made  up  my  mind  to  write  to  you,  I 
cast  about  for  a  cool  place  in  the  shade — for,  besides 
the  changes  which  fanning  works  upon  my  epidermis, 
[  fin  1  some  in  the  inner  man,  one  of  which  is  a  vege 
table  necessity  for  living  out-of-doors.  Between  five  | 
in  the  morning  and  "flower-shut,"  I  feel  as  if  four  j 
walls  and  a  ceiling  would  stop  my  breath.  Very  j 
much  to  the  disgust  of  William  (who  begins  to  think 
it  was  infra  dig.  to  have  followed  such  a  hob-nail 
from  London),  I  showed  the  first  symptom  of  this 
chair-and-carpet  asthma,  by  ordering  my  breakfast 
under  a  balsam-fir.  Dinner  and  tea  soon  followed; 
and  now,  if  I  go  in-doors  by  daylight,  it  is  a  sort  of 
fireman's  visit— in  and  out  with  a  long  breath.  I  have 
worn  quite  a  dial  on  the  grass,  working  my  chair 
.iiMiiiid  with  the  sun. 

"If  ever  you  observed,"  (a  phrase  with  which  a 
neighbor  of  mine  ludicrously  prefaces  every  possible 
remark),  a  single  tree  will  do  very  well  to  sit,  or  dine, 
or  be  buried  under,  but  you  can  not  write  in  the  shade 
of  it.  Beside  the  sun-flecks  and  the  light  all  around 
you,  there  is  a  want  of  that  privacy,  which  is  neces 
sary  to  a  perfect  abandonment  to  pen  and  ink.  I  dis 


covered  this  on  getting  as  far  as  "  dear  Doctor,"  and, 
pocketing  my  tools,  strolled  away  up  the  glen  to  bor 
row  "  stool  and  desk"  of  Nature.  Half  open,  like  a 
broad-leafed  book  (green  margin  and  silver  type),  the 
brook-hollow  of  Glenmary  spreads  wide  as  it  drops 
upon  the  meadow,  but  above,  like  a  book  that  deserves 
its  fair  margent,  it  deepens  as  you  proceed.  Not  far 
from  the  road,  its  little  rivulet  steals  forth  from  a 
shadowy  ravine,  narrow  as  you  enter,  then  widening 
back  to  a  mimic  cataract ;  and  here,  a  child  would 
say,  is  fairy  parlor.  A  small  platform  (an  island 
when  the  stream  is  swollen)  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  fall, 
carpeted  with  the  fine  silky  grass  which  thrives  with 
shade  and  spray.  The  two  walls  of  the  ravine  are 
mossy,  and  trickling  with  springs ;  the  trees  over 
head  interlace,  to  keep  out  the  sun;  and  down  comes 
the  brook,  over  a  flight  of  precipitous  steps,  like  chil 
dren  bursting  out  of  school,  and  after  a  laugh  at  its 
own  tumble,  it  falls  again  into  a  decorous  ripple,  and 
trips  murmuring  away.  The  light  is  green,  the 
leaves  of  the  overhanging  trees  look  translucent  above, 
and  the  wild  blue  grape,  with  its  emerald  rings,  has 
wove  all  over  it  a  basket-lattice  so  fine,  that  you 
would  think  it  were  done  to  order — warranted  to  keep 
out  the  hawk,  and  let  in  the  humming-bird.  With  a 
yellow  pine  at  my  back,  a  moss  cushion  beneath,  and 
a  ledge  of  flat  stone  at  my  elbow,  you  will  allow  1  had 
a  secretary's  outfit.  I  spread  my  paper,  and  mended 
my  pen ;  and  then  (you  will  pardon  me,  dear  Doctor) 
I  forgot  you  altogether.  The  truth  is,  these  fanciful 
garnishings  spoil  work.  Silvio  Pellico  had  a  better 
place  to  write  in.  If  it  had  been  a  room  with  a  Chi 
nese  paper  (a  bird  standing  for  ever  on  one  leg,  and  a 
tree  ruffled  by  the  summer  wind,  and  fixed  with  its 
leaves  on  edge,  as  if  petrified  with  the  varlet's^  mu-- 
dence),  the  eye  might  get  accustomed  to  it. 


But  first 


M147801 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


came  a  gold-robin,  twittering  out  his  surprise  to  find 
strange  company  in  his  parlor,  yet  never  frighted  from 
his  twig  by  pen  and  ink.  By  the  time  I  had  sucked  a 
lesson  out  of  that,  a  squirrel  tripped  in  without  knock 
ing,  and  sat  nibbling  at  a  last-year's  nut,  as  if  nobody 
but  he  took  thought  for  the  morrow.  Then  came  an 
enterprising  ant,  climbing  my  knee  like  a  discoverer ; 
and  I  wondered  whether  Fernando  Cortes  would  have 
mounted  so  boldly,  had  the  peak  of  Darien  been  as 
new-dropped  between  the  Americas,  as  my  leg  by  his 
ant-hill.  By  this  time,  a  small  dripping  from  a  moss- 
fringe  at  my  elbow  betrayed  the  lip  of  a  spring;  and, 
dislodging  a  stone,  I  uncovered  a  brace  of  lizards 
lying  snug  in  the  ooze.  We  flatter  ourselves,  thought 
I,  that  we  drink  first  of  the  spring.  We  do  not  know 
always  whose  lips  were  before  us. 

Much  as  you  see  of  insect  life,  and  hear  of  bird- 
music,  as  you  walk  abroad,  you  should  lie  perdu  in  a 
nook,  to  know  how  much  is  frighted  from  sight,  and 
hushed  from  singing,  by  your  approach.  What 
worms  creep  out  when  they  think  you  gone,  and  what 
chatterers  go  on  with  their  story !  So  among  friends, 
thought  I,  as  I  fished  for  the  moral.  We  should  be 
wiser,  if  we  knew  what  our  coming  hides  and  silences, 
but  should  we  walk  so  undisturbed  on  our  way  ? 

You  will  see  with  half  a  glance,  dear  Doctor,  that 
here  was  too  much  company  for  writing.  I  screwed 
up  my  inkstand  once  more,  and  kept  up  the  bed  of 
the  stream  till  it  enters  the  forest,  remembering  a  still 
place  by  a  pool.  The  tall  pines  hold  up  the  roof  high 
as  an  umbrella  of  Brobdignag,  and  neither  water 
brawls,  nor  small  birds  sing,  in  the  gloom  of  it.  Here, 
thought  1,  as  far  as  they  go,  the  circumstances  are 
congenial.  But,  as  Jean  Paul  says,  there  is  a  period 
of  life  when  the  real  gains  ground  upon  the  ideal ; 
and  to  be  honest,  dear  Doctor,  I  sat  leaning  on  the 
shingle  across  my  kneee,  counting  my  sky-kissing 
pines,  and  reckoning  what  they  would  bring  in  saw- 
logs — so  much  standing — so  much  drawn  to  the  mill. 
Then  there  would  be  wear  and  tear  of  bob-sled, 
teamster's  wages,  and  your  dead-pull  springs — the 
horses'  knees.  I  had  nearly  settled  the  per  and  con 
tra,  when  my  eye  lit  once  more  on  "my  dear  Doctor," 
staring  from  the  unfilled  sheet,  like  the  ghost  of  a 
murdered  resolution.  "  Since  when,"  I  asked,  look 
ing  myself  sternly  in  the  face,  "  is  it  so  difficult  to  be 
virtuous !  Shall  I  not  write  when  I  have  a  mind  ? 
Shall  I  reckon  pelf  whether  I  will  or  no?  Shall  but 
terfly  imagination  thrust  iron-heart  to  the  wall  ?  No !" 

I  took  a  straight  cut  through  my  ruta-baga  patch 
and  cornfield,  bent  on  finding  some  locality  (out  of 
doors  it  must  be)  with  the  average  attractions  of  a 
sentry-box,  or  a  church-pew.  I  reached  the  high 
road,  making  insensibly  for  a  brush  dam,  where  I 
should  sit  upon  a  log,  with  my  face  abutted  upon  a 
wall  of  chopped  saplings.  I  have  not  mentioned  my 
dog,  who  had  followed  me  cheerfully  thus  far,  putting 
up  now  and  then  a  partridge,  to  keep  his  nose  in ;  but, 
on  coming  to  the  bridge  over  the  brook,  he  made  up 
his  mind.  "My  master,"  he  said  (or  looked),  "will 
neither  follow  the  game,  nor  sit  in  the  cool.  Chacun 
a  son  gout.  I'm  tired  of  this  bobbing  about  for  noth 
ing  in  a  hot  sun."  So,  dousing  his  tail  (which,  "if 
you  ever  observed,"  a  dog  hoists,  as  a  flag-ship  does 
her  pennant,  only  when  the  commodore  is  aboard),  he 
sprung  the  railing,  and  spread  himself  for  a  snooze 
under  the  bridge.  '•'•Ben  trovato!"  said  I,  as  I  seated 
myself  by  his  side.  He  wagged  his  tail  half  round  to 
acknowledge  the  compliment,  and  I  took  to  work  like 
a  hay-maker. 

I  have  taken  some  pains  to  describe  these  difficulties 
to  you,  dear  Doctor,  partly  because  I  hold  it  to  be  fair, 
in  this  give-and-take  world,  that  a  man  should  know 
what  it  costs  his  fellow  to  fulfil  obligations,  but  more 
especially,  to  apprize  you  of  the  metempsychose  that  is 
taking  place  in  myself.  You  will  have  divined,  ere 


this,  that,  in  my  out-of-doors  life,  I  am  approaching  a 
degree  nearer  to  Arcadian  perfectability,  and  that,  if  1 
but  manage  to  get  a  bark  on  and  live  by  sap  (spare 
your  wit,  sir),  I  shall  be  rid  of  much  that  is  trouble-  , 
some,  not  to  say  expensive,  in  the  matters  of  drink  and  ! 
integument.  What  most  surprises  me  in  the  past,  is, 
that  I  ever  should  have  confined  my  free  soul  and  body, 
in  the  very  many  narrow  places  and  usages  I  have 
known  in  towns.  I  can  only  assimilate  myself  to  a 
squirrel,  brought  up  in  a  school-boy's  pocket,  and  let 
out  some  June  morning  on  a  snake  fence. 

The  spring  has  been  damp  for  corn,  but  I  had 
planted  on  a  warm  hill-side,  and  have  done  better  than 
my  neighbors.  The  Owaga*  creek,  which  makes  a 
bend  round  my  meadow  before  it  drops  into  the  Sus- 
quehannah  (a  swift,  bright  river  the  Owaga,  with  as 
much  water  as  the  Arno  at  Florence),  overflowed  my 
cabbages  and  onions,  in  the  May  freshet;  but  that 
touches  neither  me  nor  my  horse.  The  winter  wheat 
looks  like  "velvet  of  three-pile,"  and  everything  is 
out  of  the  ground,  including,  in  my  case,  the  buck 
wheat,  which  is  not  yet  put  in.  This  is  to  be  an  old- 
fashioned  hot  summer,  and  I  shall  sow  late.  The 
peas  are  podded.  Did  it  ever  strike  you,  by  the  way 
that  the  pious  TEneas,  famous  through  all  ages  for 
carrying  old  Anchises  a  mile,  should,  after  all,  yield 
glory  to  a  bean.  Perhaps  you  never  observed,  that 
this  filial  esculent  grows  up  with  his  father  on  his  , 
back.  '/» 

In  my  "new  light,"  a  farmer's  life  seems  to  me 
what  a  manufacturer's  might  resemble,  if  his  factory 
were  an  indigenous  plant — machinery,  girls,  and  all. 
What  spindles  and  fingers  it  would  take  to  make  an 
orchard,  if  nature  found  nothing  but  the  raw  seed, 
and  rain-water  and  sunshine  were  brought  as  far  as  a 
cotton  bale !  Your  despised  cabbage  would  be  a 
prime  article — if  you  had  to  weave  it.  Pumpkins,  if 
they  ripened  with  a  hair-spring  and  patent  lever, 
would  be,  "by'r  lady,"  a /curious  invention.  Yet 
these,  which  Aladdin  nature  produces  if  we  but 
"rub  the  lamp,"  are  more  necessary  to  life  than 
clothes  or  watches.  In  planting  a  tree  (I  write  it 
reverently),  it  seems  to  me  working  immediately  with 
the  divine  faculty.  Here  are  two  hundred  forest  trees 
set  out  with  my  own  hand.  Yet  how  little  is  my  part 
in  the  glorious  creatures  they  become  ! 

This  reminds  me  of  a  liberty  I  have  lately  taken 
with  nature,  which  I  ventured  upon  with  proper  diffi 
dence,  though  the  dame,  as  will  happen  with  dames, 
proved  less  coy  than  was  predicted.  The  brook  at  my 
feet,  from  its  birth  in  the  hills  till  it  dropped  into  the 
meadow's  lap,  tripped  down  like  a  mountain-maid 
with  a  song,  bright  and  unsullied.  So  it  flowed  by 
my  door.  At  the  foot  of  the  bank,  its  song  and 
sparkle  ceased  suddenly,  and,  turning  under  the  hill, 
its  waters  disappeared  among  sedge  and  rushes.  It 
was  more  a  pity,  because  you  looked  across  the 
meadow  to  the  stately  Owaga,  and  saw  that  its  un 
fulfilled  destiny  was  to  have  poured  its  brightness  into 
his.  The  author  of  Ernest  Maltravers  has  set  the 
fashion  of  charity  to  such  fallings  away.  I  made  a 
new  channel-  over  the  meadow,  gravelled  its  bed,  and 
grassed  its  banks,  and  (last  and  best  charity  of  all) 
protected  its  recovered  course  with  overshadowy  trees. 
Not  quite  with  so  gay  a  sparkle,  but  with  a  placid  and 
tranquil  beauty,  the  lost  stream  glides  over  the 
meadow,  and,  Maltravers-like,  the  Owaga  takes  her 
lovingly  to  his  bosom.  The  sedge  and  rushes  are 
turned  into  a  garden,  and  if  you  drop  a  flower  into  the 
brook  at  my  door,  it  scarce  loses  a  breath  of  its  per 
fume  before  it  is  flung  on  the  Owaga,  aud  the  Sus- 
quehannah  robs  him  of  it  but  with  his  life. 

I  have  scribbled  away  the  hours  till  near  noon,  and 

*  Corrupted  now  to  Owego.  Ochwaga  was  the  Indian 
word,  and  means  swift  tmtrr. 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


j 


it  is  time  to  see  that  the  oxen  get  their  potatoes. 
Faith!  it's  ;i  coo!  place  under  a  bri<l;j>'.  Knock  out 

'  the,  two  ends  of  the  Astor-house,  and  turn  the  Hudson 
through  the  long  pass::  •:<•.  and  you  will  get  an  idea  of  it. 

1 ;  The  breeze  draws  through  here  deftly,  the  stone  wall 
is  cool  to  my  back,  and  this  floor  of  running  water,  be 
sides  what  the  air  steals  from  it,  sounds  and  looks  re 
freshingly.  My  letter  has  run  on,  till  I  am  inclined 
to  think  the  industry  of  running  water  "breeds  i'the 
brain."  Like  the  tin-pot  at  the  cur's  tail,  it  seems  to 
overtake  one  with  an  admonition,  if  he  but  slack  to 
breathe.  Be  not  alarmed,  dear  Doctor,  for,  sans  po 
tatoes,  my  oxen  will  lull  in  the  furrow,  and  though  the 
brook  run  till  doomsday,  I  must  stop  here.  Amen. 


LETTER  II. 

Mr  DKAR  DOCTOR  :  I  have  just  had  a  visit  from 
the  assessor.  As  if  a  man  should  be  taxed  for  a 
house,  who  could  be  luxurious  under  a  bridge !  I 
have  felt  a  decided  "call"  to  disclaim  roof  and  thresh 
old,  and  write  myself  down  a  vagabond.  Fancy  tin- 
variety  of  abodes  open,  rent-free,  to  a  bridge-fancier. 
It  is  said  among  the  settlers,  that  where  a  stranger 
finds  a  tree  blown  over  (the  roots  forming,  always,  an 
upright  and  well-matted  wall),  lie  has  only  his  house 
to  finish.  Cellar  and  chimney-back  are  ready  done  to 
his  hand.  But,  besides  being  roofed,  walled,  and  wa 
tered,  and  better  situated,  and  more  plenty  than  over 
blown  trees — bridges  are  on  no  man's  land.  You  are 
no  "  squatter,"  though  you  sit  upon  your  hams.  You 
may  shut  up  one  end  with  pine  boughs,  and  you  have 
a  room  a-la-mode — one  large  window  open  to  the 
floor.  The  view  is  of  banks  and  running  water — ex 
quisite  of  necessity.  For  the  summer  months  I 
could  imagine  this  bridge-gipsying  delicious.  What 
furniture  might  pack  in  a  donkey-cart,  would  set  forth 
a  better  apartment  than  is  averaged  in  hotels  (so 
yclept).  :uvl  the  saving  to  your  soul  (of  sins  commit 
ted,  sitting  at  a  bell-rope,  ringing  in  vain  for  water) 
would  be  worthy  a  conscientious  man's  attention. 

I  will  not  deny  that  the  bridge  of  Glenmary  is  a  fa 
vorable  specimen.  As  its  abutments  touch  my  cot- 
ta<:e-l;iwn,  I  was  under  the  necessity  of  presenting  the 
public  with  anew  bridge,  for  which  act  of  munificence 
I  have  not  yet  received  the  freedom  of  the  town.  Per 
haps  I  am  expected  to  walk  through  it  when  I  please, 
without  asking.  The  hitherward  railing  coming  into 
the  line  of  my  fence,  I  have,  in  a  measure,  a  private 
entrance ;  and  the  whole  structure  is  overshadowed  by 
a  luxuriant  tree.  To  be  sure,  the  beggar  may  go 
down  the  bank  in  the  road,  and,  entering  by  the  other 
side,  sit  under  it  as. well  as  I — but  he  is  welcome.  I 
like  society  sans-gene — where  you  may  come  in  or  go 
out  without  apology,  or  whistle,  or  take  of?'  your  shoes. 
And  I  would  give  notice  here  to  the  beggary  of  Tioga, 
that  in  building  a  stone  seat  under  the  bridge,  and 
laying  the  banks  with  green-sward,  I  intend  no  seques 
tration  of  their  privileges.  I  was  pleased  that  a  swal 
low,  who  had  laid  her  mud-nest  against  a  sleeper 
overhead,  took  no  offence  at  my  improvements.  Her 
three  nestlings  made  large  eyes  when  I  read  out  what 
I  have  scribbled,  but  she  drowses  on  without  astonish 
ment.  She  is  a  swallow  of  last  summer,  and  has  seen 
authors. 

A  foot-passenger  has  just  gone  over  the  bridge, 
and,  little  dreaming  there  were  four  of  us  listening 
(the  swallows  and  Tj,  he  leaned  over  the  railing,  and 
ventured  upon  a  soliloquy.  "Why  don't  he  cut 
down  the  trees  so's  he  can  see  out?"  said  my  uncon 
scious  adviser.  I  caught  the  eye  of  the  mother-swal 
low,  and  fancied  she  was  amused.  Her  swallowlings 
looked  petrified  at  the  sacrilegious  suggestion.  By 
fhe  way,  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  though  her  littl'e 


ones  have  been  hatched  a  week,  this  estimable  parent 
still  AV/.S  rioi  ilnir  heads.  Might  not  this  continued 
incubation  be  tried  with  success  upon  backward  chil 
dren?  We  are  so  apt  to  think  babies  are  finished 
when  their  bodies  are  brought  into  the  world! 

For  some  minutes,  now,  I  have  observed  an  occa 
sional  cloud  rising  from  the  bottom  of  the  brook,  and, 
peering  among  the  stones,  1  discovered  on»  of  the 
small  lobsters  with  which  the  streams  abound.  (The 
naturalists  may  class  them  differently,  but  as  there  is 
but  one,  and  he  has  all  the  armament  of  a  lobster, 
though  on  the  scale  of  a  shrimp,  the  swallows  agree 
with  me  in  opinion  that  he  should  rank  as  a  lobster.) 
So  we  are  five.  "  Cocksnouns !"  to  borrow  Scott's 
ejaculation,  people  should  never  be  too  sure  that  they 
are  unobserved.  When  I  first  came  under  the  bridge, 
I  thought  myself  alone. 

This  lobster  puts  me  in  mind  of  Talleyrand.  You 
would  say  he  is  going  backward,  yet  he  gets  on  faster 
i  that  way  than  the  other.  After  all,  he  is  a  great  man 
who  can  turn  his  reverses  to  account,  and  that  I  take 
to  be,  oftentimes,  one  of  the  chief  secrets  of  great 
ness.  If  I  were  in  politics,  I  would  take  the  lobster 
for  my  crest.  It  would  be  ominous,  I  fear,  in  poetry. 

You  should  come  to  the  country  now,  if  you  would 

I  see  the  glory  of  the  world.     The  trees  have  been  co- 

I  queuing  at  their  toilet,  waiting  for  warmer  weather; 

i  but  now  I  think  they  have  put  on  their  last  flounce 

I  and  furbelow,  spread  their  bustle,  and  stand  to  be  ad- 

'.  mired.     They  say  "leafy  June."     To-day  is  the  first 

of  July,  and  though  I  give  the  trees  my  first  morning 

regard   (out-of-doors)   when  my  eyes  are  clearest,  I 

!  have  not  fairly  thought  till  to-day,  that  the  foliage  was 

full.     If  it  were  not  for  lovers  and  authors,  who  keep 

vigil  and  count  the  hours,  I  should  suspect  there  was 

foul  play  between  sun  and  moon — a  legitimate  day 

I  made  away  with  now  and  then.     (The  crime  is  not 

unknown  in  the  upper  circles.     Saturn  devoured  his 

children.) 

There  is  a  glory  in  potatoes — well  hoed.  Corn — 
i  the  swaying  and  stately  maize — has  a  visible  glory. 
To  see  the  glory  of  turnips,  you  must  own  the  crop, 
and  have  cattle  to  fat — but  they  have  a  glory.  Pease 
need  no  paean — they  are  appreciated.  So  are  not  cab 
bages,  which,  though  beautiful  as  a  Pompeian  wine- 
cup,  and  honored  above  roses  by  the  lingering  of  the 
dew,  are  yet  despised  of  all  handicrafts — save  one. 
Apt  emblem  of  ancient  maidenhood,  which  is  despised, 
like  cabbages,  yet  cherishes  unsunned  in  its  bosom  the 
very  dew  we  mourn  so  inconsistently  when  rifled  from 
the  rose. 

Apropos — the  delicate  tribute  in  the  last  sentence 
shall  serve  for  an  expiation.  In  a  journey  I  made 
through  Switzerland,  I  had  for  chance-travelling  com 
panions,  three  Scotch  ladies,  of  the  class  emulated  by 
this  chaste  vegetable.  They  were  intelligent,  refined, 
and  lady-like;  yet  in  some  Pencillings  by  the  Way 
(sketched,  perhaps,  upon  an  indigestion  of  mountain 
cheese,  or  an  acidity  of  bad  wine — such  things  affect 
us)  I  was  perverse  enough  to  jot  down  a  remark,  more 
invidious  than  just.  We  are  reached  with  a  long 
whip  for  our  transgressions,  and,  but  yesterday,  I  re 
ceived  a  letter  from  the  Isle  of  Man,  of  which  thus 
runs  an  extract :  "  In  your  description  of  a  dangerous 
pass  in  Switzerland,  you  mention  travelling  in  the 
same  public  conveyance  with  three  Scotch  spinsters, 
and  declare  you  would  have  been  alarmed,  had  there 
been  any  neck  in  the  carriage  you  cared  for,  and  as 
sert,  that  neither  of  your  companions  would  have  hesi 
tated  to  leap  from  a  precipice,  had  there  been  a  lover 
at  the  bottom.  Did  either  of  us  tell  you  so,  sir  ?  Or 
what  ground  have  you  for  this  assertion  ?  You  could 
not  have  judged  of  us  by  your  own  beautiful  country 
women,  for  they  are  proverbial  for  delicacy  of  feeling. 
You  had  not  yet  made  the  acquaintance  of  mine. 
We,  therefore,  must  appropriate  entirely  to  ourselves 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


the  very  flattering  idea  of  having  inspired  such  an 
opinion.  Yet  allow  me  to  assure  you,  sir,  that  lovers 
are  by  no  means  so  scarce  in  my  native  country,  as 
you  seem  to  imagine.  No  Scotchwoman  need  go 
either  to  Switzerland,  or  Yankee-land,  in  search  of 
them.  Permit  me  to  say  then,  sir,  that  as  the  attack 
was  so  public,  an  equally  public  amende  honorable  is 
due  to*  us." 

I  make  it  here.  I  retract  the  opinion  altogether.  I 
do  not  think  you  "  would  have  leaped  from  the  preci 
pice,  had  there  been  a  lover  at  the  bottom."  On  the 

contrary,   dear  Miss  ,  I   think  you  would  have 

waited  till  he  climbed  up.  The  amende,  I  flatter  my 
self,  could  scarce  be  more  complete.  Yet  I  will  make 
it  stronger  if  you  wish. 

CAs  I  look  out  from  under  the  bridge,  I  see  an  oriel 
sitting  upon  a  dog-wood  tree  of  my  planting.  His 
song  drew  my  eye  from  the  p;iper.  1  find  it  difficult, 
now,  not  to  take  to  myself  the  whole  glory  of  tree, 
song,  and  plumage.  By  an  easy  delusion,  I  fancy  he 
would  not  have  come  but  for  the  beauty  of  the  tree, 
and  that  his  song  says  as  much,  in  bird-recitative.  I 
go  back  to  one  rainy  day  of  April,  when,  hunting  for 
maple  saplings,  I  stopped  under  that  graceful  tree,  in 
a  sort  of  island  jungle,  and  wondered  what  grew  so 
fair  that  was  so  unfamiliar,  yet  with  a  bark  like  the 
plumage  of  the  pencilled  pheasant.  The  limbs  grew 
curiously.  A  lance-like  stem,  and,  at  regular  distan 
ces  a  cluster  of  radiating  branches,  like  a  long  cane 
thrust  through  inverted  parasols.  I  set  to  work  with 
spade  and  pick,  took  it  home  on  my  shoulder,  and  set 
it  out  by  Glenmary  brook,  and  there  it  stands  to-day, 
in  the  full  glory  of  its  leaves,  having  just  shed  the 
white  blossoms  with  which  it  kept  holyday  in  June. 
Now  the  tree  would  have  leaved  and  flowered,  and  the 
oriel,  in  black  and  gold,  might  perchance  have  swung 
and  sung  on  the  slender  branch,  which  is  still  tilting 
with  his  effort  in  that  last  cadenza.  But  the  fair  pic 
ture  it  makes  to  my  eye,  and  the  delicious  music  in 
my  ear,  seem  to  me  no  less  of  my  own  making  and 
awaking.  Is  it  the  same  tree,  flowering  unseen  in 
the  woods,  or  transplanted  into  a  circle  of  human  love 
and  care,  making  a  part  of  a  woman's  home,  and 
thought  of  and  admired  whenever  she  comes  out  from 
her  cottage,  with  a  blessing  on  the  perfume  and  ver 
dure  ?  Is  it  the  same  bird,  wasting  his  song  in  the 
thicket,  or  singing  to  me,  with  my  whole  mind  afloat 
on  his  music,  and  my  eyes  fastened  to  his  glittering 
breast  ?  So  it  is  the  same  block  of  marble,  unmoved 
in  the  caves  of  Pentelicus,  or  brought  forth  and 
wrought  under  the  sculptor's  chisel.  Yet  the  sculp 
tor  is  allowed  to  create-  Sing  on,  my  bright  oriel ! 
Spread  to  the  light  and  breeze  your  desiring  finger, 
my  flowering  tree  !  Like  the  player  upon  the  organ, 
[  take  your  glory  to  myself;  though,  like  the  hallelu 
jah  that  burns  under  his  fingers,  your  beauty  and  mu 
sic  worship  God. 

There  are  men  in  the  world  whose  misfortune  it  is 
to  think  too  little  of  themselves — rari  nantes  in  <fur- 
gite  vasto.  I  would  recommend  to  such  to  plant  trees, 
and  live  among  them.  This  suggesting  to  nature — 
working,  as  a  master-mind,  with  all  the  fine  mysteries 
of  root  and  sap,  obedient  to  the  call — is  very  king-like. 
Then  how  elevating  is  the  society  of  trees  !  The  ob 
jection  I  have  to  a  city,  is  the  necessity,  at  every  other 
.f  step,  of  passing  sonie  acquaintance  or  other,  with  all 
his  merits  or  demerits  entirely  through  my  mind — 
some  man,  perhaps,  whose  existence  and  vocation  I 
have  not  suggested  (as  I  might  have  done  were  he  a 
tree) — whom  I  neither  love,  nor  care  to  meet ;  and 
yet  he  is  thrust  upon  my  eye,  and  must  be  noticed. 
But  to  notice  him  with  propriety,  I  must  remember 
what  he  is — what  claims  he  has  to  my  respect,  my  ci 
vility.  I  must,  in  a  minute  balance  the  account  be 
tween  my  character  and  his,  and  if  he  speak  to  me, 
remember  his  wife  and  children,  his  last  illness,  his 


mishap  or  fortune  in  trade,  or  whatever  else  it  is  ne 
cessary  to  mention  in  condolence  or  felicitation.  A 
man  with  but  a  moderate  acquaintance,  living  in  a 
city,  will  pass  through  his  mind  each  day,  at  a  fair 
calculation,  say  two  hundred  men  and  women,  with 
their  belongings.  What  tax  on  the  memory  !  What 
fatigue  (and  all  profitless)  to  them  and  him!  "Sweep 
me  out  like  a  foul  thoroughfare!"  say  I.  "  The  town 
has  trudged  through  me  !" 

I  like  my  mind  to  be  a  green  lane,  private  to  the 
dwellers  in  my  own  demesne.  I  like  to  be  bowed  to 
as  the  trees  bow,  and  have  no  need  to  bow  back  or 
smile.  If  I  am  sad,  my  trees  forego  my  notice  without 
offence.  If  I  am  merry,  or  whimsical,  they  do  not 
suspect  my  good  sense,  or  my  sanity.  We  have  a 
constant  itching  (all  men  have,  I  think)  to  measure 
ourselves  by  those  about  us.  I  would  rather  it  should 
be  a  tree  than  a  fop,  or  a  politician,  or  a  'prentice. 
Wejjrow  to  the  nearest  standard.  We  become  Lilli-  /, 
putians  in  LiHiput.  Let  me  grow  up  like  a  tree.  '  / 

But  here  comes  Tom  Groom  with  an  axe,  as  if  he 
had  looked  over  my  shoulder,  and  started,  apropos  of 
trees. 

"Is  it  that  big  button-ball  you'll  have  cut  down, 
sir?" 

"  Call  it  a  sycamore,  Tom,  and  I'll  come  and  see." 
It  is  a  fine  old  trunk,  but  it  shuts  out  the  village  spire, 
and  must  come  down. 

Adieu,  dear  Doctor ;  you  may  call  this  a  letter  if  you 
will,  but  it  is  more  like  an  ( 


LETTER  III. 


DEAR  DOCTOR  :  There  are  some  things  that  grow 
more  certain  with  time  and  experience.  Among 
them,  I  am  happier  for  finding  out,  is  the  affinity 
which  makes  us  friends.  But  there  are  other  matters 
which,  for  me,  observation  and  knowledge  only  serve 
to  perplex,  and  among  these  is  to  know  whose  "edu 
cation  has  been  neglected."  One  of  the  first  new 
lights  which  broke  on  me,  was  after  my  first  day  in 
France.  I  went  to  bed  with  a  newborn  contempt, 
mingled  with  resentment,  in  my  mind,  toward  my  ven 
erable  alma  mater.  The  three  most  important  branches 
of  earthly  knowledge,  I  said  to  myself,  are,  to  under 
stand  French  when  it  is  spoken,  to  speak  it  so  as  to  be 
understood,  and  to  read  and  write  it  with  propriety 
and  ease.  For  accomplishment  in  the  last,  I  could 
refer  to  my  diploma,  where  the  fact  was  stated  on  in 
destructible  parchment.  But,  allowing  it  to  speak 
the  truth  (which  was  allowing  a  great  deal),  there 
were  the  two  preceding  branches,  in  which  (most 
culpably  to  my  thinking)  "my  education  had  been 
neglected."  Could  I  have  taken  out  my  brains,  and, 
by  simmering  in  a  pot,  have  decocted  Virgil,  Homer, 
Playfair,  Dugald  Stewart,  and  Copernicus,  all  five, 
into  one  very  small  Frenchman — (what  they  had 
taught  me  to  what  he  could  teach) — I  should  have 
been  content,  though  the  fiend  blew  the  fire. 

I  remember  a  beggarly  Greek,  who  acquired  an 
ascendency  over  eight  or  ten  of  us,  gentlemen  and 
scholars,  travelling  in  the  east,  by  a  knowledge  of 
what  esculents,  growing  wild  above  the  bones  of  Mil- 
tiades,  were  "  good  for  greens."  We  were  out  of  pro 
visions,  and  fain  to  eat  with  Nebuchadnezzar.  "  Hang 
grammar!"  thought  I,  "here's  a  branch  in  which  my 
education  has  been  neglected."  Who  was  ever  called 
upon  in  his  travels  to  conjugate  a  verb  ?  Yet  here, 
but  for  this  degenerate  Athenian,  we  had  starved  for 
our  ignorance  of  what  is  edible  in  plants. 

I  had  occasion,  only  yesterday,  to  make  a  similar 
remark.  I  was  in  a  crowded  church,  listening  to  a 
Fourth  of  July  oration ;  what  with  one  sort  of  caloric 
and  what  with  another,  it  was  very  uncomfortable,  and 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


v 


a  lady  near  me  became  faint.  To  get  her  out,  was 
impossible,  and  there  was  neither  fan,  nor  sal  volatile, 
within  twenty  pews.  The  bustle,  after  awhile,  drew 
the  attention  of  an  uncombed  Yankee  in  his  shirt 
sleeves,  who  had  stood  in  the  aisle  with  his  mouth 
open,  gazing  at  the  stage  in  front  of  the  pulpit,  and 
wondering,  perhaps,  what  particular  difference  be 
tween  sacred  and  profane  oratory,  required  this  pains 
taking  exhibition  of  the  speaker's  legs.  Compre 
hending  the  state  of  the  case  at  a  single  glance,  the 
backwoodsman  whipped  together  the  two  ends  of  his 
riding-switch,  pulled  his  cotton  handkerchief  tightly- 
over  it,  and,  with  this  effective  fan,  soon  raised  a 
breeze  that  restored  consciousness  to  the  lady,  besides 
cooling  everybody  in  the  vicinity.  Here  is  a  man, 
thought  I,  brought  up  to  have  his  wits  ready  for  an 
emergency.  His  "  education  has  not  been  neglected." 

To  know  nothing  of  sailing  a  ship,  of  farming,  of 
carpentering,  in  short,  of  any  trade  or  profession,  may 
be  a  p<0£gJ',  though  sometimes  inconvenient  igno 
rance.  Fonly  speak  of  such  deficiencies,  as  a  modest 
person  will  not  confess  without  giving  a  reason — as  a 
man  who  can  not  swim  will  say  he  is  liable  to  the 
cramp  in  deep  water.  With  some  reluctance,  lately, 
1  have  brought  myself  to  look  after  such  dropped  , 
threads  in  my  own  woof  of  acquisitions,  in  the  hope  j 
of  mending  them  before  they  were  betrayed  by  an  exi 
gency.  Trout-fishing  is  one  of  these.  I  plucked  up 
\\I-.\Y\  a  day  or  two  since,  and  drove  to  call  upon  a 
young  sporting  friend  of  mine,  to  whom  I  confessed, 
plump,  I  never  had  caught  a  trout.  I  knew  nothing 
of  flies,  worms,  rods,  or  hooks.  Though  I  had  seen 
in  a  book  that  "  hog's  down"  was  the  material  for  the 
May-fly,  I  positively  did  not  know  on  what  part  of  that 
succulent  quadruped  the  down  was  found. 

"Positively  ?" 

"  Positively !" 

My  friend  F.  gravely  shut  the  door  to  secure  pri 
vacy  to  my  ignorance,  and  took  from  his  desk  a  vol-  j 
ume_0f  flies !  Here  was  new  matter !  Why,  sir !  j 
your  trout-fishing  is  a  politician  of  the  first  water! 
Here  were  baits  adapted  to  all  the  whims,  weaknesses, 
states  of  appetite,  even  counter-baits  to  the  very  cun 
ning,  of  the  fish.  Taking  up  the  "Spirit  of  the 
Times"  newspaper,  his  authority  in  all  sporting  mat 
ters,  which  he  had  laid  down  as  I  came  in,  he  read  a 
recipe  for  the  construction  of  one  out  of  the  many  of 
these  seductive  imitations,  as  a  specimen  of  the  labor 
bestowed  on  them.  "The  body  is  dubbed  with  hog's 
down,  or  light  bear's  hair  mixed  with  yellow  mohair, 
whipped  with  pale  floss  silk,  and  a  small  strip  of  pea- 1 
cock's  herl  for  the  head.  The  wings  from  the  rayed 
feathers  of  the  mallard,  dyed  yellow  ;  the  hackle  from 
the  bittern's  neck,  and  the  tail  from  the  long  hairs  of 
the  sable  or  ferret." 

I  cut  my  friend  short  midway  in  his  volume,  for, 
ever  since  my  disgust  at  discovering  that  the  perplexed 
grammar  I  had  been  whipped  through  was  nothing 
but  the  art  of  talking  correctly,  which  I  could  do  be 
fore  I  began,  1  have  had  an  aversion  to  rudiments. 
"Frankly,"  said  I,  "dear  F.  my  education  has  been 
neglected.  Will  you  take  me  with  you,  trout-fishing, 
fish  yourself,  answer  my  questions,  and  assist  me  to 
pick  up  the  science  in  my  own  scrambling  fashion?" 

He  was  good-natured  enough  to  consent,  and  now, 
dear  Doctor,  you  see  to  what  all  this  prologue  was 
tending.  A  day's  trout-fishing  may  be  a  very  com 
mon  matter  to  you,  but  the  sport  was  as  new  to  me  as 
to  tho  trout.  I  .may  say,  however,  that  of  the  two,  I 
took  to  the  novelty  of  the  thing  more  kindly. 

The  morning  after  was  breezy,  and  the  air,  without 
n  shower,  had  become  cool.  1  was  sitting  under  the 
!>;••  lire,  with  my  heels  at  the  water's  edge,  reading  ;> 
,>aper,  while  waiting  for  inv  breakfast,  \^\<-\  a 
slight  motion  apprized  me  that  the  water  had  invaded 
my  instep.  I  had  been  wishing  the  sun  had  drank  less 


freely  of  my  brook,  and  within  a  few  minutes  of  the 
wish,  it  had  risen,  doubtless,  from  the  skirt  of  a  shower 
in  the  hills  beyond  us.  "Come!"  thought  J,  pulling 
my  boots  out  of  the  ripple,  "so  should  arrive  favors 
that  would  be  welcome — no  herald,  and  no  weary  ex 
pectation.  A  human  gift  so  uses  up  gratitude  with 
the  asking  and  delaying."  The  swallow  heard  the  in- 
reased  babble  of  the  stream,  and  came  out  of  the  air 
ike  a  cimeter  to  see  if  her  little  ones  were  afraid,  and 
he  fussy  lobster  bustled  about  in  his  pool,  as  If  there 
were  more  company  than  he  expected.  "  Semper  pa- 
ratus  is  a  good  motto,  Mr.  Lobster !"  "  I  will  look 
after  your  little  ones,  Dame  Swallow !"  I  had  scarce 
listributed  these  consolations  among  my  family,  when 
a  horse  crossed  the  bridge  at  a  gallop,  and  the  head  of 
my  friend  F.  peered  presently  over  the  railing. 

"  How  is  your  brook  ?" 

"Rising,  as  you  see!" 

It  was  evident  there  had  been  rain  west  of  us,  and 
he  sky  was  still  gray — good  auspices  for  the  fisher. 
[n  half  an  hour  we  were  climbing  the  hill,  with  such 
contents  in  the  wagon-box  as  my  friend  advised — the 
'lebris  of  a  roast  pig  and  a  bottle  of  hock  supposed  to 
be  included  in  the  bait.  As  we  got  into  the  woods 
above  (part  of  my  own  small  domain),  I  could  scarce 
lelp  addressing  my  tall  tenantry  of  trees.  "  Grow 
away,  gentlemen,"  I  would  have  said,  had  I  been 
alone  ;  "  I  rejoice  in  your  prosperity.  Help  your 
selves  to  the  dew  and  the  sunshine !  If  the  showers  are 
not  sent  to  your  liking,  thrust  your  roots  into  my 
ellar,  lying  just  under  you,  and  moisten  your  clay 
without  ceremony — the  more  the  better."  After  all, 
trees  have  pleasant  ways  with  them.  It  is  something 
hat  they  find  their  own  food  and  raiment — something 
that  they  require  neither  watching  nor  care — some-  . 
thing  that  they  know,  without  almanac,  the  proces 
sions  of  the  seasons,  and  supply,  unprompted  and 
unaided,  the  covering  for  their  tender  family  of  germes. 
So  do  not  other  and  less  profitable  tenants.  But  it  is 
more  to  me  that  they  have  no  whims  to  be  reasoned 
with,  no  prejudices  to  be  soothed,  no  garrulity  to  re 
ply  or  listen  to.  I  have  a  peculiarity  which  this 
touches  nearly.  Some  m9n  "make  a  god  of  their 
aelly;"  some  spend  thought  and  cherishing  on  their 
feet,  faces,  hair;  some  few  on  their  fancy  or  their 
reason.  7am  chary  of  my  gift  of  speech.  I  hate  to 
talk  but  for  my  pleasure.  In  common  with  my  fel 
low-men,  I  have  one  faculty  which  distinguishes  me 
from  the  brute — an  articulate  voice.  I  speak  (I  am 
warranted  to  believe)  like  my  Maker  and  his  angels. 
I  have  committed  to  me  an  instrument  no  human  art 
has  ever  imitated,  as  incomprehensible  in  its  fine  and 
celestial  mechanism,  as  the  reason  which  controls  it.^ 
Shall  I  breathe  on  this  articulate  wonder  at  every 
fool's  bidding  ?  Without  reasoning  upon  the  matter 
as  I  do  now,  I  have  felt  indignant  at  the  common  ad 
age,  "  words  cost  nothing !"  It  is  a  common  saying 
in  this  part  of  the  country,  that  "  you  may  talk  oft"  ten 
dollars  in  the  price  of  a  horse."  Those  who  have 
travelled  in  Italy,  know  well  that  in  procuring  any 
thing  in  that  country,  from  a  post-carriage  to  a  paper 
of  pins,  you  pay  so  much  money,  so  much  talk— the 
less  talk  the  more  money.  I  commenced  all  my  bar 
gains  with  a  compromise—"  You  charge  me  ten  scudi, 
and  you  expect  me  to  talk  you  down  to  five.  I  know 
the  price  and  the  custom.  Now,  I  will  give  you  seven 
and  a  half  if  you  will  let  me  off  the  talk."  I  should 
be  glad  if  all  buying  and  selling  were  done  by  signs. 
It  seems  to  rne  that  talking  on  a  sordid  theme  invades 
and  desecrates  the  personal  dignity.  The  "  scripta 
vcrla  manenf"  has  no  terrors  for  me.  I  could  write 
that  without  a  thought,  which  I  would  put  myself  to 
great  inconveniences  to  avoid  tawng- 

You,  dear  Doctor,  among  others,  have  often  asked 
me  how  long  I  should  be'  contented  in  the  country. 
Comment,  diaUc!  ask,  rather,  how  you  are  contented 


fc* 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


\\ 


in  a  town  !     Does  not   every  creature,  whose  nam 
may  have  been  mentioned  to  you — a  vast  congrega 
tion  of  nothiuglings — stop  you  in  the  street,  and,  wil 
you,  nill  you,  make  you  perform  on  your  celestial  or 
gan  of  speech — nay,  even  choose  the  theme  out  of  hi 
own  littlenesses  ?  When  and  how  do  you  possess  you 
thoughts,  and  their  godlike  interpreter,  in  dignity  anc 
peace  ?     You  are  a  man,  of  all  others,  worthy  of  th 
unsuggestive  listening   of  trees.      Your   coinage   ol 
thought,  profuse  and  worthy  of  a  gilt  of  utterance,  is 
alloyed  and  depreciated  by  the  promiscuous  admix 
tures   of  a  town.     Who   ever   was   struck   with   the 
majesty  of  the  human  voice  in  the  street  ?     Yet,  who 
ever  spoke,  the  meanest,  in  the  solitude  of  a  temple 
or  a  wilderness,  or,  in  the  stillness  of  night — wher 
ever  the  voice  is  alone  heard — without  an  awe  of  his 
own  utterance — a  feeling  as  if  he  had  exercised  a  gift 
which  had  in  it  something  of  the  supernatural  ? 

The  Indian  talks  to  himself,  or  to  the  Great  Spirit 
in  the  woods,  but  is  silent  among  men.  We  take 
many  steps  toward  civilization  as  we  get  on  in  life 
but  it  is  an  error  to  think  that  the  heart  keeps  up  witl 
the  manners.  At  least,  with  me,  the  perfection  of  ex 
istence  seems  to  be,  to  possess  the  arts  of  social  life 
with  the  simplicity  and  freedom  of  the  savage.  They 
talk  of  "  unbridled  youth !"  Who  would  not  have 
borne  a  rein  at  twenty,  he  scorns  at  thirty  ?  Who 
does  not,  as  his  manhood  matures,  grow  more  im 
patient  of  restraint — more  unwilling  to  submit  to  the 
conventional  tyrannies  of  society — more  ready,  if  there 
were  half  a  reason  for  it,  to  break  through  the  whole 
golden  but  enslaving  mesh  of  society,  and  start  fresh, 
with  Nature  and  the  instincts  of  life,  in  the  wilderness. 
The  imprisonment  to  a  human  eye  may  be  as  irksome 
as  a  fetter — yet  they  who  live  in  cities  are  never  loosed. 
Did  you  ever  stir  out  of  doors  without  remembering 
that  you  were  seen  ? 

I  have  given  you  my  thoughts  as  I  went  by  my  tall 
foresters,  dear  Doctor,  for  it  is  a  part  of  trout-fishing, 
as  quaint  Izaak  held  it,  to  be  stirred  to  musing  and 
revery  by  the  influences  of  nature.  In  this  free  air, 
too,  I  scorn  to  be  tied  cjpwn  to  "the  proprieties." 
Nay,  if  it  come  to  that,  why  should  I  finish  what 
begin  ?  Dame  swallow,  to  be  sure,  looks  curious  to 
hear  the  end  of  my  first  lesson  with  the  angle.  But 
no !  rules  be  hanged  !  I  do  not  live  on  a  wild  brook  to 
be  plagued  with  rhetoric.  I  will  seal  up  my  letter 
where  I  am,  and  go  a-fie!d.  You  shall  know  what 
we  brought  home  in  the  basket  when  I  write  again. 


LETTER  IV. 

MY  DEAR  DOCTOR:  Your  letters,  like  yourself,  trav 
el  in  the  best  of  company.  What  should  come  with 
your  last,  but  a  note  from  our  friend  Stetson  of  the 
Astor,  forwarding  a  letter  which  a  traveller  had  left  in 
the  bronze  vase,  with  "something  enclosed  which  feels 
like  a  key."  "A  key,"  quotha!  Attar  of  jasmine, 
subtle  as  the  breath  of  the  prophet  from  Constantino 
ple  by  private  hand!  No  less!  The  small  gilt  bottle, 
with  its  cubical  edge  and  cap  of  parchment,  lies  breath 
ing  before  me.  I  think  you  were  not  so  fortunate  as 
tomeet  Bartlett,  the  draughtsman  of  the  American  sce 
nery — the  best  of  artists  in  his  way,  and  the  pleasantest 
of  John  Bulls,  any  way.  He  travelled  with  me  asum- 
mer  here,  making  his  sketches,  and  has  since  been 
sent  by  the  same  enterprising  publisher  (Virtue,  of 
Ivy  Lane),  to  sketch  in  the  Orient.  ("  Stand  by,"  as 
Jack  says,  for  something  glorious  from  that  quarter.) 
Well — pottering  about  the  Bezestein,  he  fell  in  with 
my  old  friend  Mustaphn,  the  attar-merchant,  who  lift 
ed  the  silk  curtains  for  him,  and  over  sherbet  and 
spiced  coffee  in  the  inner  divan,  questioned  him  of 
America — a  country  which,  to  Mustapha's  fancy,  is  as 


far  beyond  the  moon  as  the  moon  is  beyond  the  gilt 
tip  of  the  seraglio.  Bartlett  told  him  the  sky  was 
round  in  that  country,  and  the  women  faint  and  exquis 
ite  as  his  own  attar.  Upon  which  Mustapha  took  his 
pipe  from  his  mouth,  and  praised  Allah.  After  stro 
king  the  smoke  out  of  his  beard,  and  rolling  his  idea 
over  the  whites  of  his  eyes  for  a  few  minutes,  the  old 
merchant  pulled  from  under  his  silk  cushion,  a  visit 
ing-card,  once  white,  but  stained  to  a  deep  orange  with 
the  fingering  of  his  fat  hand,  unctuous  from  bath-hour 
to  bath-hour  with  the  precious  oils  he  traffics  in. 
When  Bartlett  assured  him  he  had  seen  me  in  Amer 
ica  (it  was  the  card  I  had  given  the  old  Turk  at  part 
ing,  that  he  might  remember  my  name),  he  settled  the 
curtains  which  divide  the  small  apartment  from  the 
shop,  and  commanding  his  huge  Ethiopian  to  watch 
the  door,  entered  into  a  description  of  our  visit  to  the 
forbidden  recesses  of  the  slave-market,  of  his  pur 
chase  (for  me),  of  the  gipsy  Maimuna,  and  some  oth 
er  of  my  six  weeks'  adventures  in  his  company — for 
Mustapha  and  I,  wherever  it  might  lie  in  his  fat  body, 
had  a  nerve  in  unison.  We  mingled  like  two  drops 
of  the  oil  of  roses.  At  parting,  he  gave  Bartlett  this 
small  bottle  of  jasmine,  to  be  forwarded  to  me,  with 
much  love, 'at  his  convenience;  and  with  the  perfume 
of  it  in  my  nostrils,  and  the  corpulent  laugh  of  old 
Mustapha  ringing  in  my  ear,  I  should  find  it  difficult 
at  this  moment,  to  say  how  much  of  me  is  under  this 
bridge  in  Tioga,  North  America.  I  am  not  sure  that 
my  letter  should  not  be  dated  "  attar-shop,  near  the  se 
raglio"  for  there,  it  seems  to  me,  I  am  writing. 

"  Tor-rnentingest  growin'  time,  aint  it !"  says  a  neigh 
bor,  leaning  over  the  bridge  at  this  instant,  and  little 
thinking  that  on  that  breath  of  his  I  travelled  from  the 
Bosphorus  to  the  Susquehannah.  Really,  they  talk 
of  steamers,  but  there  is  no  travelling  conveyance  like 
an  interruption.  A  minute  since,  I  was  in  the  capital  £ 
of  the  Palaeologi,  smoking  a  narghile  in  the  Turk's 
shop.  Presto!  here  I  am  in  the  county  of  Tiog',  sit 
ting  under  a  bridge;  with  three  swallows  and  a  lobster 
(not  three  lobsters  at  a  swallow — as  you  are  very  like 
ly  to  read  it  in  your  own  careless  way),  and  no  outlay 
for  coals  or  canvass.  Now,  why  should  not  this  be  re 
duced  to  a  science — like  steam  !  I'll  lend  the  idea  to 
the  cause  of  knowledge.  If  a  man  may  travel  from 
Turkey  to  New  York  on  a  passing  remark,  what  might 
be  done  on  a  long  sermon  ?  At  present  the  agent  is 
irregular,  so  was  steam.  The  performance  of  the 
journey,  at  present,  is  compulsory.  So  was  travelling 
by  steam  before  Fulton.  The  discoveries  in  animal 
magnetism  justify  the  most  sanguine  hopes  on  the  sub 
ject,  and  "open  up,"  as  Mr.  Bulwer  would  express  it, 
a  vast  field  of  novel  discovery. 

The  truth  is  (I  have  been  sitting  a  minute  thinking 
it  over),  the  chief  obstacle  and  inconvenience  in  trav 
elling  is  the  prejudice  in  favor  of  taking  the  body  with 
us.  It  is  really  a  preposterous  expense.  Going  abroad 
exclusively  for  the  benefit  of  the  mind,  we  are  at  no 
little  trouble,  in  the  first  place,  to  provide  the  means 
for  the  body's  subsistence  on  the  journey  (the  rnind 
not  being  subject  to  "charges")  and  then,  besides  trail 
ing  after  us  through  ruins  and  galleries,  a  companion  ' 
who  takes  no  enjoyment  in  pictures  or  temples,  and  is 
perpetually  incommoded  by  our  enthusiasm,  we  un 
dergo  endless  vexation  and  annoyance  with  the  care  of 
his  baggage.  Blessed  be  Providence,  the  mind  is  in 
dependent  of  boots  and  linen.  When  the  system 
above  hinted  at  is  perfected,  we  can  leave  our  box-coats 
at  home,  item  pantaloons  for  all  weathers,  item  cravats, 
flannels,  and  innumerable  hose.  I  shall  use  my  port 
manteau  to  send  eggs  to  market,  with  chickens  in  the 
two  carpet-bags.  My  body  I  shall  leave  with  the  dai 
ry-woman,  to  be  fed  at  milking-time.  Probably,  how 
ever,  in  the  progress  of  knowledge,  there  will  be  some 
discovery  by  which  it  can  be  closed  in  the  absence 
of  the  mind,  like  a  town-house  when  the  occupant  is  „ 


; 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


in  the  country — blinds  down,  and  a  cobweb  over  the 
keyhole. 

In  all  the  prophetic  visions  of  a  millenium,  the  chief 
obstacle  to  its  progress  is  the  apparently  undiminish- 
ing  necessity  for  the  root  of  all  evil.  Intelligence  is 
diffusing,  Jaw  becoming  less  merciless,  ladies  driving 
hoops,  and  (I  have  observed)  a  visible  increase  of  mar 
riages  between  elderly  ladies  and  very  young  gentle 
men — the  last  a  proof  that  the  affections  (as  will  be 
universally  true  in  the  milleninm)  may  retain  their 
freshness  in  age.  But  among  all  these  lesser  begin 
nings,  the  philanthropist  has  hitherto  despaired,  for  to 
his  most  curious  search,  there  appeared  no  symptom 
of  beginning  to  live  without  money.  May  we  not  dis- 
cenfin  this  system  (by  which  the  mind,  it  is  evident, 
may  perform  some  of  the  most  expensive  functions  of 
the  body),  a  dream  of  moneyless  millenium — a  first 
step  toward  that  blessed  era  when  "  Diddle  and  dis 
counts"  will  be  read  of  like  "Aaron  and  burnt-offer 
ings" — ceremonies  which  once  made  it  necessary  for 
a  high-priest,  and  an  altar  at  which  the  innocent  suf 
fered  for  the  guilty,  but  which  shall  have  passed  away 
in  the  blessed  progress  of  the  millenium? 

If  I  may  make  a  grave  remark  to  you,  dear  Doctor, 
I  think  the  whole  bent  and  spirit  of  the  age  we  live  in, 
is,  to  make  light  of  mailer.  Religion,  which  used  to 
be  seated  in  the  heart,  is,  by  the  new  light  of  Chan- 
ning,  addressed  purely  to  the  intellect.  The  feelings 
and  passions,  which  are  bodily  affections,  have  less  to 
do  with  it  than  the  mind.  To  eat  with  science  and 
drink  hard,  were  once  passports  to  society.  To  think 
shrewdly  and  talk  well,  carry  it  now.  Headaches 
were  cured  by  pills,  which  now  yield  to  magnetic 
fluid — nothing  so  subtle.  If  we  travelled  once,  it 
must  be  by  pulling  of  solid  muscle.  Rarefied  air  does 
it  now  better  than  horses.  War  has  yielded  to  nego 
tiation.  A  strong  man  is  no  better  than  a  weak  one. 
Electro-magnetism  will  soon  do  all  the  work  of  the 
world,  and  men's  muscles  will  be  so  much  weight — 
no  more.  The  amount  of  it  is,  that  ive  are  gradually 
learning  to  do  loithout  our  bodies.  The  next  great  dis 
covery  will  probably  be  some  pleasant  contrivance  for 
getting  out  of  them,  as  the  butterfly  sheds  his  worm. 
Then,  indeed,  having  no  pockets,  and  no  "  corpus"  for 
your  " habeas"  we  can  dispense  with  money  and  its 
consequences,  and  lo !  the  millenium  !  Having  no 
stomachs  to  care  for,  there  will  be  much  cause  of  sin 


crimes.     That  the    London   Quarterly  ever  existed, ' 
will  be  classed  with  such  historical  enormities  as  the 
Inquisition,   and   torture  for   witchcraft;  and  "to  be 
Locl'lnnicd"  will  mean,  then,  what  "to  be  Burked" 
means  now. 

You  will  say,  dear  Doctor,  that  I  am  the  "  ancient  , 
mariner"  of  letter-writers — telling  my  tale  out  of  all 
apropos-ity.  But  after  some  consideration,  I  have 
made  up  my  mind,  that  a  man  who  is  at  all  addicted 
to  r^vjjry,  must  have  one  or  two  escape-valves — a 
journal,  or  a  very  random  correspondence.  For  rea 
sons  many  and  good,  I  prefer  the  latter;  and  the  best 
of  those  reasons  is  my  good  fortune  in  possessing  a 
friend  like  yourself,  who  is  above  "  proprieties"  (pro- 
sodically  speaking),  and  so  you  have  become  to  me, 
what  Asia  was  to  Prometheus — 

"  When  his  being  overflowed, 
Was  like  a  golden  chalice  to  bright  wine, 
Which  else  had  sunk  into  the  thirsty  dusk." 

Talking  of  trout.  We  emerged  from  the  woods  of 
Glenmary  (you  left  me  there  in  my  last  letter),  and 
rounding  the  top  of  the  hill,  which  serves  for  my  sun 
set  drop-curtain,  we  ran  down  a  mile  to  a  brook  in  the 
bed  of  a  low  valley.  It  rejoices  in  no  name,  that  1 
could  hear  of;  but,  like  much  that  is  uncelebrated,  it 
has  its  virtues.  Leaving  William  to  tie  the  horse  to  a 
hemlock,  and  bring  on  the  basket,  we  started  up  the 
stream,  and  coming  to  a  cold  spring,  my  friend  sat 
down  to  initiate  me  into  the  rudiments  of  preparing 
the  fly.  A  very  gay-coated  gentleman  was  selected, 
rather  handsomer  than  your  horse-fly,  and  whipped 
upon  a  rod  quite  too  taper  for  a  comparison. 

"  What  next?" 

"  Take  a  bit  of  worm  out  of  the  tin  box,  and  cover 
the  barb  of  the  hook  !" 

"  I  will.  Stay  !  where  are  the  bits  ?  1  sec  nothing 
here  but  full-length  worms,  crawling  about,  with 
every  one  his  complement  of  extremities — not  a  tail 
astray." 

"Bah!  pull  a  bit  off!" 

"  What !  you  don't  mean  that  I  am  to  pull  one  of 
these  squirming  unfortunates  in  two  ?" 

"  Certainly !" 

"Well,  come!  that  seems  to  me  rather  a  liberty. 
I  grant  you  'my  education  has  been  neglected,'  but, 
my  dear  F.,  there  is  mercy  in  a  guillotine.  I  had 


done  away,  for  in  most  penal  iniquities,  the  stomach  |  J  made  up  my  mind  to  the  death  of  the  fish,  but  this 

is  at  the  bottom.     Think  what  smoothness  will  follow  1  preliminary— horror  !" 

"  Come !  don't  be  a  woman !" 

"  I  wish  I  were — I  should  have  a  pair  of  scissors 


in  "the  cause  of  true  love" — money  coming  never  be 
tween  !      It  looks  ill  for  your  profession,  dear  Doctor. 
We  shall  have  no  need  of  physic.     The  fee  will  go  to 
him  who  "  administers  to  the  mind  deceased" — prob 
ably  the  clergy.      (Mem.  to  put  your  children  in  the 
church.)     I  am  afraid  crowded  parties  will  go  out  of 
fashion — it   would   be   so   difficult  to   separate  one's 
globule  in  case  of  "  mixed  society" — yet  the  extrica 
tion  of   gases    might  be   improved  upon.      Fancy  a 
lady  and  gentleman  made  "  common  air"  of,  by  the 
mixture  of  their  "  oxygen  and  hydrogen  !" 
-   What  most  pleases  me  in  the  prospect  of  this  Swe- 
dmborg  order  of  things,  is  the  probable  improvement 
in  the  laws.     In  the  physical  age  passing  away,  we 
-    have  legislated  for  the  protection  of  the  body,  but  no 
pains  or  penalties  for  wounds  upon  its  more  sensitive 
inhabitant — murder  to  break   the  snail's  shell,  but  in- 
•»  nocent  pastime  to  thrust  a  pin  into  the  snail.     In  the 
•  new  order  of  things^  we  shall  have  penal  laws  for  the 
0*;     protection  of  the  s^hsibljities — whether  they  be  touch- 
',  cd  through  the  fanCyv-ftie  judgment,  or  the  personal 
i  dignity.     Those  will  be  days  for  poets  !      Critics  will 
,  be  hanged — or  worse.     A  sneer  will  be  manslaughter. 
•   V   I  Ridicule  will  be  a  deadly  weapon,  only  justifiable  u  IK  n 
-,     •  used  in  defence  of  life.     For  scandal,  imprisonment 
from  ten  to  forty  years,  at  the  mercy  of  the  court. 
All  attacks  upon  honor,  honesty,  or  innocence,  capital 


Fancy  having  your  leg  pulled  off,  my  good  fellow.  I 
say  it  is  due  to  the  poor  devil  that  the  operation  be  as 
short  as  possible.  Suppose  your  thumb  slips?" 

"Why,  the  worm  feels  nothing!     Pain  is  in  the 
imagination.     Stay  !  I'll  do  it  for  you— there  ?" 

What  the  remainder  of  the  worm  felt,  I  had  no  op 
portunity  of  observing,  as  my  friend  thrust  the  tin  box 
;  into  his  pocket  immediately  ;  but  the  "bit"  which  he 
I  dropped  into  the  palm  of  my  hand,  gave  every  symp- 
1  torn  of  extreme  astonishment,  to  say  the  least.  The 
passing  of  the  barb  of  the  hook  three  times  through 
him,  seemed  rather  to  increase  his  vitality,  and  looked 
to  me  as  little  like  happiness  as  anything  I  ever  saw 
on  an  excursion  of  pleasure.  Far  be  it  from  me,  to 
pretend  to  more  sensibility  than  Christopher  North,  or 
Izaak  Walton.  The  latter  had  his  humanities;  and 
Wilson,  of  all  the  men  I  have  ever  seen,  carries,  most 
marked  in  his  fine  face,  the  philtre  which  bewitches 
affection.  But,  emulous  as  I  am  of  their  fame  as  an 
glers,  and  modest  as  I  should  feel  at  introducing  inno 
vations  upon  an  art  so  refined,  I  must  venture  upon 
some  less  primitive  instrument  than  thumb  and  finger, 
for  the  dismemberment  of  worms.  I  must  take 
scissors. 

I  had  never  seen  a  trout  caught  in  my  life,  and  1  do 


8 


'THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


not  remember  at  this  moment  ever  having,  myself, 
caught  a  fish,  of  any  genus  or  gender.  My  first  les 
son,  of  course,  was  to  see  the  thing  done.  F.  stole 
up  to  the  bank  of  the  stream,  as  if  his  tread  might 
wake  a  naiad,  and  threw  his  fly  into  a  circling,  black 
pool,  sparkling  with  brilliant  bubbles,  which  coiled 
away  from  a  small  brook-leap  in  the  shade.  The 
same  instant  the  rod  bent,  and  a  glittering  spotted 
creature  rose  into  the  air,  swung  to  his  hand,  and  was 
dropped  into  the  basket.  Another  fling,  and  a  small 
trail  of  the  fly  on  the  water,  and  another  followed. 
With  the  third,  I  felt  a  curious  uneasiness  in  my  el 
bow,  extending  quickly  to  my  wrist — the  tingling  of  a 
newborn  enthusiasm.  F.  had  taken  up  the  stream, 
and  with  his  lips  apart,  and  body  bent  over,  like  a  mortal 
surprising  some  troop  of  fays  at  revel,  it  was  not  rea 
sonable  to  expect  him  to  remember  his  pupil.  So, 
silently  I  turned  down,  and  at  the  first  pool  threw  in 
my  fly.  Something  bright  seemed  born  at  the  instant 
under  it,  and  the  slight  tilting  pull  upon  the  pole, 
took  me  so  much  by  surprise,  that  for  a  second  I  for 
got  to  raise  it.  Up  came  the  bright  trout,  raining  the 
silver  water  from  his  back,  and  at  the  second  swing 
through  the  air  (for  I  had  not  yet  learned  the  sleight 
of  the  fisher  to  bring  him  quick  to  hand),  he  dropped 
into  the  pool,  and  was  gone.  I  had  already  begun  to 
take  his  part  against  myself,  and  detected  a  pleased 
thrill,  at  his  escape,  venturing  through  my  bosom. 
I  sat  down  upon  a  prostrate  pine,  to  new-Shylock  my  | 
poor  worm.  The  tin  box  was  in  F.'s  pocket !  Come ! 
here  was  a  relief.  As  to  the  wild-wood  worms  that 
might  be  dug  from  the  pine-tassels  under  my  feet,  I 
was  incapable  of  violating  their  forest  sanctuary.  I 
would  fish  no  more.  I  had  had  my  pleasure.  It  is 
not  like  pulling  up  a  stick  or  a  stone,  to  pull  up  a  re 
sisting  trout.  It  is  a  peculiar  sensation,  unimaginable 
till  felt.  I  should  like  to  be  an  angler  very  well,  but 
for  the  loorm  in  my  pocket. 

The  brook  at  my  feet,  and  around  me,  pines  of  the 
tallest  lift,  by  thousands !  You  may  travel  through 
a  forest,  and  look  upon  these  communicants  with  the 
sky,  as  trees.  But  you  can  not  sit  still  in  a  forest, 
alone,  and  silent,  without  feeling  the  awe  of  their  pres 
ence.  Yet  the  brook  ran  and  sang  as  merrily,  in 
their  black  shadow,  as  in  the  open  sunshine ;  and  the 
woodpecker  played  his  sharp  hammer  on  a  tree  ever 
green  for  centuries,  as  fearlessly  as  on  a  shivering 
poplar,  that  will  be  outlived  by  such  a  fish-catcher  as 
I.  Truly,  this  is  a  world  in  which  there  is  small  rec 
ognition  of  greatness.  As  it  is  in  the  forest,  so  it  is 
in  the  £f(Wn.  The  very  gods  would  have  their  toes 
trod  upon,  if  they  walked  without  their  wings.  Yet 
let  us  take  honor  to  ourselves  above  vegetables.  The 
pine  beneath  me  has  been  a  giant,  with  his  top  in  the 
clouds,  but  lies  now  unvalued  on  the  earth.  We  rec 
ognise  greatness  when  it  is  dead.  We  are  prodigal 
of  love  and  honor  when  it  is  unavailing.  We  are,  in 
something,  above  wood  and  stubble. 

I  have  fallen  into  a  sad  trick,  dear  Doctor,  of  preach 
ing  sermons  to  myself,  from  these  texts  of  nature. 
Sometimes,  like  other  preachers,  I  pervert  the  meaning 
and  forget  the  context,  but  revery  would  lose  its 
charm  if  it  went  by  reason.  Adieu!  Come  up  to 
Glenmary,  and  catch  trout  if  you  will.  But  I  will 
have  your  worms  decently  drowned  before  boxed  for 
use.  I  can  not  sleep  o'nights,  after  slipping  one  of 
these  harmless  creatures  out  of  his  own  mouth,  in  a 
vain  attempt  to  pull  him  asunder. 


MY  DKAR  DOCTOR:  If  this  egg  hatch  without  get 
ting  cold,  or,  to  accommodate  my  language  to  your 
city  apprehension,  if  the  letter  I  here  begin  comes  to 


a  finishing,  it  will  be  malgre  blistering  hands  and 
weary  back — the  consequences  of  hard  raking — of 
hay.  The  men  are  taking  their  four  o'clock  of  cheese 
and  cider  in  the  meadow,  and  not  having  simplified 
my  digestion  as  rapidly  as  my  habits,  I  have  retired 
to  the  shelter  of  the  bridge,  to  be  decently  rid  of  the 
master's  first  bit,  and  pull  at  the  pitcher.  After 
employing  my  brains  in  vain,  to  discover  why  this  par 
ticular  branch  of  farming  should  require  cider  and 
cheese  (eaten  together  at  no  other  season  that  I  can 
learn),  T  have  pulled  out  my  scribble-book  from  the 
niche  in  the  sleeper  overhead,  and  find,  by  luck,  one 
sheet  of  tabula  rasa,  upon  which  you  are  likely  to  pay 
eighteen  pence  to  Amos  Kendall. 

Were  you  ever  in  a  hay-field,  Doctor?  I  ask  for 
information.  Metaphorically,  I  know  you  "  live  in 
clover'' — meaning,  the  society  of  wits,  and  hock  of  a 
certain  vintage — but  seriously,  did  you  ever  happen 
to  stand  on  the  natural  soil  of  the  earth,  off  the  pave 
ment  ?  If  you  have  not,  let  me  tell  you  it  is  a  very 
pleasant  change.  I  have  always  fancied  there  was  a 
mixture  of  the  vegetable  in  myself;  and  I  am  con 
vinced  now,  that  there  is  something  in  us  which  grows 
more  thriftily  on  fresh  earth,  than  on  flag-stones. 
There  are  some  men  indigenous  to  brick  and  mortar, 
as  there  are  plants  which  thrive  best  with  a  stone  on 
them;  but  there  are  "  connecting  links"  between  all 
the  varieties  of  God's  works,  and  such  men  verge  on 
the  mineral  kingdom.  I  have  seen  whole  geodes  of 
them,  with  all  the  properties  of  flints,  for  example. 
But  in  you,  my  dear  Doctor,  without  flattery,  I  think 
I  see  the  vegetable,  strong,  though  latent.  You 
would  thrive  in  the  country,  well  planted  and  a  little 
pruned.  I  am  not  sure  it  would  do  to  water  you  free 
ly — but  you  want  sunshine  and  fresh  air,  and  a  little 
bird  to  shake  the  "  dew"  out  of  your  top. 

I  see,  from  my  seat  under  the  bridge,  a  fair  mead-s 
ow,  laid  like  an  unrolled  carpet  of  emerald,  along  the 
windings  of  a  most  bright  and  swift  river.  The  first 
owner  of  it  after  the  savage,  all  honor  to  his  memory, 
sprinkled  it  with  forest  trees,  now  at  their  loftiest 
growth,  here  and  there  one,  stately  in  the  smooth 
grass,  like  a  polished  monarch  on  the  foot-cloth  of 
his  throne.  The  river  is  the  Owaga,  and  its  opposite 
bank  is  darkened  with  thick  wood,  through  which  a 
liberal  neighbor  has  allowed  me  to  cut  an  eye-path  to 
the  village  spire — a  mile  across  the  fields.  From  my 
cottage  door  across  this  meadow-lawn,  steals,  with 
silver  foot,  the  brook  I  redeemed  from  its  lost  stray- 
ings,  and,  all  along  between  brook  and  river,  stand  hay 
cocks,  not  fairies.  Now,  possess  me  as  well  of  your 
whereabout — what  you  see  from  your  window  in 
Broadway !  Is  there  a  sapling  on  my  whole  arm  that 
would  change  root-hold  with  you  ? 

The  hay  is  heavy  this  year,  and  if  there  were  less,  I 
should  still  feel  like  taking  off  my  hat  to  the  meadow. 
There  is  nothing  like  living  in  the  city,  to  impress  one 
with  the  gratuitous  liberality  of  the  services  rendered 
one  in  the  country.  Here  are  meadows  now,  that 
without  hint  or  petition,  pressing  or  encouragement, 
pay  or  consideration,  nay,  careless  even  of  gratitude, 
shoot  me  up  some  billions  of  glass-blades,  clover- 
flowers,  white  and  red,  and  here  and  there  a  nodding 
regiment  of  lilies,  tall  as  my  chin,  and  it  is  under 
stood,  I  believe,  that  I  am  welcome  to  it  all.  Now, 
you  may  think  this  is  all  easy  enough,  and  the  meadow 
is  happy  to  be  relieved  ;  but  so  the  beggar  might  think 
of  your  alms,  and  be  as  just.  But  you  have  made  the 
money  you  give  him  by  the  sweat  of  your  brow.  So 
has  the  meadow  its  grass.  "  It  is  estimated,"  says 
the  Book  of  Nature,  "  that  an  acre  of  grass-land  trans 
pires,  in  twenty-four  hours,  not  less  than  six  thousand 
four  hundred  quarts  of  water."  Sweat  me  that  with 
out,  a  fee,  thou  "  dollar  a  visit !" 

Here  comes  William  from  the  post,  with  a  handful 
of  papers.  The  Mirror,  with  a  likeness  of  Sprague. 


• 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


A  likeness  in  a  mirror  could  scarce  fail,  one  would 
think,  aud  here,  accordingly,  he  is, — the  banker-poet, 
the  Rogers  of  our  country — fit  as  "  as  himself  to  be 
his  parallel."     Yet  I  have  never  seen  that  stern  look 
on  him.     We  know  he  bears  the  "  globe"*  on  his 
back,  like  old  Atlas,  but  he  is  more  urbane  than  the  j 
world-bearer.     He  keeps  a  muscle  unstrained  for  a 
ffriiile.     A  more  courteous  gentleman  stands  not  by  I 
Mammon's  altar — no,  nor  by  the  lip  of  Helicon — yet 
(      this   is  somehow  stern.     In   what  character,   if  you; 
v__please,  Mr.  Harding?     Sat  Plutus,  or  Apollo,  astride 
J      your  optic  nerve  when  you  drew  that  picture  ?   Tt  may 
be  a  look  he  has,  but,  fine  head  as  it  stands  on  paper,  j 
they  who  form  from  it  an  idea  of  the  man.  -would  be 
*      agreeably  disappointed   in   meeting   him.     And  this, 
^     which  is  a  merit  in  most  pictures,  is  a  fault  in  one  , 
which  posterity  is  to  look  at. 

Sprague  has  the  reputation  of  being  a  most  able  • 
<j    /financier.     Yet  he  is  not  a  rich  man.     Best  evidence  ; 
'~S/  'n  tne  world  that  he  puts  his  genius  into  his  calcula 
tions,  for  it  is  the  nature  of  uncommon  gifts  to  do  : 
?    \epod  to  all  but  their  possessor.     That  he  is  a  poet, ' 
^5       and  a  tnle  and  high  one,  has  been  not  so  much  ac- ' 
knowledged  by  criticism,  as  felt  in  the  republic.     The 
/'"great  army  of  ed(tj>rs,  who  paragraph  upon  one  name, 
t     \    as  an  entry  of  college-boys  will  play  upon  one  flute, 
till  the  neighborhood  would  rather  listen  to  a  volun 
tary  upon  shovel  and  tongs,  have  not  made  his  name  ! 
djfarhal  and  hebdomadal ;    but  his  jioetry  is  diffused 
by-more  unjostlecjfavi'imes,  to  the  understandings  and 
hearts  of  his  countrymen.     I,  for  one,  think  he  is  a 
better  banker  for  his  genius,  as  with  the  same  power ' 
\  he  would  have  made  a  better  soldier,  statesman,  far-  '• 
mer.  what  you  will.      I  have  seen  excellent  poetry  ' 
from  the  hand  of  Plutus — (Biddle,  I  should  have  said, 
but  I  never  scratch  out  to  you) — yet  he  has  but  ruf-  ; 
fled  the  muse,  while  Sprague  has  courted  her.     Our ! 
Theodore, ^  "bieri-aime,  at  the  court  of  Berlin,  writes  a 
better  despatch,  I  warrant  you,  than  a  fellow  born  of 
red  tape  and  fed  on  sealing-wax  at  the  department.     1 1 
am  afraid  the  genius  of  poor  John  Quincy  Adams  is 
more  limited.     He  is  only  the  best  president  we  have 
had  since  Washington — not  a  poet,  though  he  has  a ' 
volume  in  press.     Briareus  is  not  the  father  of  all  who  ' 
will  have  a  niche.     Shelley  would  have  made  an  un-  ] 
safe    banker,   for  he  was   prodigal   of  stuff.      Pope,  j 
Rogers,   Crabbe,   Sprague,  Halleck,  waste   no   gold, 
even  in  poetry.     Every  idea  gets  his   due  of  those 
poets,  and   no  more ;  and  Pope  and  Crabbe,  by  the ' 
same  token,  would  have   made  as   good  bankers  as' 
Sprague  and  Rogers.     We  are  under  some  mistake 
about  genius,  my  dear  Doctor.     I'll  just  step  in-doors, '; 
and  find  a  definition  of  it  in  the  library. 

Really,  the  sun  is  hot  enough,  as  Sancho  says,  to  j 
fry  the  brains  in  a  man's  scull. 

"  Genius,"  says  the  best  philosophical  book  I  know 
of,  "  wherever  it  is  found,  and  to  whatever  purpose 
directed,  is  mental  power.     It  distinguishes  the  man  j 
of  fine  phrensy,  as  Shakspere  expresses  it,  from  the ! 
man  of  mere  phrensij.     It  is  a  sort  of  instantaneous  in-  j 
sight  that  gives  us  knowledge  without  going  to  school 
for  it.     Sometimes  it  is  directed  to  one  subject,  some 
times  to  another;  but  under  whatever  form  it  exhibits  j 
itself,  it  enables  the  individual  who   possesses  it,  to 
make  a  wonderful,  and  almost  miraculous  progress  in 
the  line  of  his  pursuit." 

Si  non  e  vero,  e  ben  trovato.  If  philosophy  were 
more  popular,  we  should  have  Irving  for  president, 
Halleck  for  governor  of  Iowa,  and  '.Bryant  envoy  to 
Texas.  But  genius,  to  the  multitude,  is  a  phantom 
without  mouth,  pockets,  or  hands — incapable  of  work, 
unaccustomed  to  food,  ignorant  of  the  uses  of  coin, 

*  Mr.  Sprague  is  cashier  of  the  Globe  Bank,  Boston, 
j  Theodore  Fay,  secretary  of  the  Amcric;m  embassy  to 
Prussia. 


and  unfit  candidate,  consequently,  for  any  manner  of 
loaves  and  fishes.  A  few  more  Spragues  would  leaven 
this  lump  of  narrow  prejudice. 

I  wish  you  would  kill  off  your  patients,  dear  Doctor, 
and  contrive  to  be  with  us  at  the  agricultural  show.  I 
(latter  myself  I  shall  take  the  prize  for  turnips.  By 
the  way,  to  answer  your  question  while  I  think  of  it, 
that  is  the  reason  why  I  am  not  at  Niagara,  "  taking  a 
look  at  the  viceroy."  I  must  watch  my  turnip-ling.' 
I  met  Lord  Durham  once  or  twice  when  in  London, 
and  once  at  dinner  at  Lady  Blessington's.  I  was  ex 
cessively  interested,  on  that  occasion,  by  the  tactics  of 
D'Israeli,  who  had  just  then  chipped  his  political  shell, 
and  was  anxious  to  make  an  impression  on  Lord  Dur 
ham,  whose  glory,  still  to  come,  was  confidently  fore 
told  in  that  bright  circle.  I  rather  fancy  the  dinner 
was  made  to  give  Vivian  Grey  the  chance  ;  for  her 
ladyship,  benevolent  to"  every  one,  has  helped  D'Isra 
eli  to  "  imp  his  wing,"  with  a  devoted  friendship,  of 
which  he  should  imbody  in  his  maturest  work  the 
delicacy  and  fervor.  Women  are  glorious  friends  to 
stead  ambition  ;  but  effective  as  they  all  can  be,  few 
have  the  tact,  and  fewer  the  varied  means,  of  the  lady 
in  question.  The  guests  dropped  in,  announced  but 
unseen,  in  the  dim  twilight ;  and,  when  Lord  Durham 
came,  I  could  only  see  that  he  was  of  middle  stature, 
and  of  a  naturally  cold  address.  Bulwer  spoke  to  him, 
but  he  was  introduced  to  no  one — a  departure  from 
the  custom  of  that  maison  sans-genc,  which  was  ei 
ther  a  tribute  to  his  lordship's  reserve,  or  a  ruse  on  the 
part  of  Lady  Blessington,  to  secure  to  D'Israeli  the 
advantage  of  having  his  acquaintance  sought — suc 
cessful,  if  so  ;  for  Lord  Durham,  after  dinner,  re 
quested  a  formal  introduction  to  him.  But  for  D'Or- 
say,  who  sparkles,  as  he  does  everything  else,  out  of 
rale,  and  in  splendid  defiance  of  others'  dulness,  the 
soup  and  the  first  half  hour  of  dinner  would  have 
passed  off,  with  the  usual  English  fashion  of  earnest 
silence.  I  looked  over  my  spoon  at  the  future  premier, 
a  dark,  saturnine  man,  with  very  black  hair,  combed 
very  smooth,  and  wondered  how  a  heart,  with  the  tur 
bulent  ambitions,  and  disciplined  energies  which  were 
stirring,  I  knew,  in  his,  could  be  concealed  under  that 
polished  and  marble  tranquillity  of  mien  and  manner. 
He  spoke  to  Lady  Blessington  in  an  uuder-tone,  re 
plying  with  a  placid  serenity  that  never  reached  a 
smile,  to  so  much  of  D'Orsay's  champagne  wit  as 
threw  its  sparkle  in  his  way,  and  Bulwer  and  D'Israeli 
were  silent  altogether.  I  should  have  foreboded  a  dull 
dinner  if,  in  the  open  brow,  the  clear  sunny  eye,  and 
unembarrassed  repose  of  the  beautiful  and  expressive 
mouth  of  Lady  Blessington,  I  had  not  read  the  prom 
ise  of  a  change.  It  came  presently.  With  a  tact,  of 
which  the  subtle  ease  and  grace  can  in  no  way  be  con 
veyed  into  description,  she  gathered  up  the  cobweb 
threads  of  conversation  going  on  at  different  parts  of 
the  table,  and,  by  the  most  apparent  accident,  flung 
them  into  D'Israeli's  fingers,  like  the  ribands  of  a  four- 
in-hand.  And,  if  so  coarse  a  figure  can  illustrate  it, 
he  took  the  whip-hand  like  a  master.  It  was  an  ap 
peal  to  his  opinion  on  a  subject  he  well  understood, 
and  he  burst  at  once,  without  preface,  into  that  fiery 
vein  of  eloquence  which,  hearing  many  times  after, 
and  always  with  new  delight,  have  stamped  D'Israeli 
on  my  mind  as  the  most  wonderful  talker  I  have  ever 
had  the  fortune  to  meet.  He  is  anything  but  a  de- 
claijner.  You  would  never  think  him  on  stilts.  If 
he  catches  himself  in  a  rhetorical  sentence,  he  mocks 
at  it  in  the  next  breath.  He  is  satirical,  contemptuous, 
pathetic,  humorous,  everything  in  a  moment ;  and  his 
conversation  on  any  subject  whatever,  embraces  the 
omnibus  rebut,  c>  Cjuilusdam  aliis.  Add  to  this,  that 
D'Tsraeli's  is  the  most  intellectual  face  in  England — 
pale,  regular,  and  overshadowed  with  the  most  luxu 
riant  mnsses  of  raven-black  hair;  and  you  will  scam- 
wonder  that,  meeting  him  for  the  first  time,  Lord  Dur- 


10 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


ham  was  (as  he  was  expected  to  be  by  the  Aspasia  of 
that  London  Academe),  impressed.  He  was  not  car 
ried  away  as  we  were.  That  would  have  been  unlike 
Lord  Durham.  He  gave  his  whole  mind  to  the  bril 
liant  meteor  blazing  before  him  ;  but  the  telescope  of 
judgmeni  was  in  his  hand — to  withdraw  at  pleasure 
He  has  evidently  native  to  his  blood,  that  great  quality 
of  a  statesman — retenu.  D'lsraeli  and  he  formed  at 
the  moment  a  finely  contrasted  picture.  Understand 
ing  his  game  perfectly,  the  author  deferred,  constantly 
and  adroitly,  to  the  opinion  of  his  noble  listener,  shap 
ed  his  argument  by  his  suggestions,  allowed  him  to 
say  nothing  without  using  it  as  the  nucleus  of  some 
new  turn  to  his  eloquence,  and  all  this,  with  an  appa 
rent  effort  against  it,  as  if  he  had  desired  to  address 
himself  exclusively  to  Lady  Blessington,  but  was  com 
pelled,  by  a  superior  intellectual  magnetism,  to  turn 
aside  and  pay  homage  to  her  guest.  With  all  this  in 
stinctive  management  there  was  a  flashing  abandon  in 
his  language  and  choice  of  illustration,  a  kindling  of 
his  eye,  and,  what  I  have  before  described,  a  positive 
foaming  at  his  lips,  which  contrasted  with  the  warm 
but  clear  and  penetrating  eye  of  Lord  Durham,  his 
calm  yet  earnest  features,  and  lips  closed  without  com 
pression,  formed,  as  I  said,  a  picture,  and  of  an  order 
worth  remembering  in  poetry.  Without  meaning  any 
disrespect  to  D'lsraeli,  whom  I  admire  as  much  as  any 
man  in  England,  I  remarked  to  my  neighbor,  a  cele 
brated  artist,  that  it  would  make  a  glorious  drawing  of 
Satan  tempting  an  archangel  to  rebel. 

Well — D'lsraeli  is  in  parliament,  and  Lord  Durham 
on  the  last  round  but  one  of  the  ladder  of  subject 
greatness,  The  viceroy  will  be  premier,  no  doubt ; 
but  it  is  questionable  if  the  author  of  Vivian  Grey 
does  more  than  carry  out  the  moral  of  his  own  tale. 
Talking  at  a  brilliant  table,  with  an  indulgent  and  su 
perb  woman  on  the  watch  for  wit  and  eloquence,  and 
rising  in  the  face  of  a  cold  common-sense  house  of 
commons,  on  the  look  out  for  froth  and  humbug,  are 
two  different  matters.  In  a  great  crisis,  with  the  na 
tion  in  a  tempest,  D'lsraeli  would  flash  across  the 
darkness  very  finely — but  he  will  never  do  for  the  calm 
right-hand  of  a  premier.  I  wish  him,  I  am  sure,  ev 
ery  success  in  the  world  ;  but  I  trust  that  whatever 
political  reverses  fall  to  his  share,  they  will  drive  him 
back  to  literature. 

I  have  written  this  last  sentence  in  the  red  light  of 
sunset,  and  I  must  be  out  to  see  my  trees  watered,  and 
my  kine  driven  a-field  after  their  milking.  What  a 
coverlet  of  glory  the  day-god  draws  about  him  for  his 
repose  !  I  should  like  curtains  of  that  burnt  crimson. 
If  I  have  a  passion  in  the  world,  it  is  for  that  royal 
trade,  upholstery;  and  so  thought  George  the  Fourth, 
and  so  thinks  Sultan  Mahmoud,  who,  with  his  own 
henna-tipped  fingers,  assisted  by  his  assembled  harem, 
arranges  every  fold  of  drapery  in  the  seraglio.  If  po 
etry  fail,  I'll  try  the  profession  some  day  en  grand,  and 
meantime  let  me  go  out  and  study  one  of  the  three 
hundred  and  sixty-five  varieties  of  couch-drapery  in 
the  west. 


LETTER  VI. 

MY  DEAR  DOCTOR  :  Your  letter  contained 

"  A  few  of  the  unpleasantest  words 
That  e'er  were  writ  on  paper  !" 

Why  should  you  not  pass  August  at  Glenmary? 
Have  your  patients  bought  you,  body  and  soul  ?  Is 
there  no  "night-bell"  in  the  city  but  yours?  Have 
you  no  practice  in  the  country,  my  dear  Esculapius  ? 
Faith  !  I'll  be  ill !  By  the  time  you  reach  here,  I 
shall  be  a  "  case."  I  have  not  had  a  headache  now 
in  twenty  years,  and  my  constitution  requires  a  change. 
I'll  begin  by  eating  the  cucumbers  we  had  saved  for 


your  visit,  and  you  know  the  consequences.  Mix  me  a 
pill  for  the  cholera — first,  second,  or  third  stage  of  the 
disease,  according  to  your  speed — and  come  with 
what  haste  you  may.  If  you  arrive  too  late,  you  lose 
your  fee,  but  I'll  return  your  visit,  by  the  honor  of  a 
ghost. 

By  the  way,  as  a  matter  of  information,  do  you 
charge  in  such  cases  ?  Or,  the  man  being  dead,  do 
you  deduct  for  not  feeling  his  pulse,  nor  felling  him 
the  name  of  his  damaged  organ  in  Latin  ?  It  should 
be  half-price,  I  think,  these  items  off.  Let  me  know 
by  express  mail,  as  one  likes  to  be  prepared. 

Since  I  wrote  to  you,  I  have  added  the  Chemung 
river  to  my  list  of  acquaintances.  It  was  done  a  Vim- 
provista,  as  most  pleasant  things  are.  We  were  dri 
ving  to  the  village  on  some  early  errand,  and  met  a 
friend  at  the  cross-roads,  bound  with  an  invalid  to 
Avon  Springs.  He  was  driving  his  own  horses,  and 
proposed  to  us  to  set  him  a  day's  journey  on  his^way. 
I  had  hay  to  cut,  but  the  day  was  made  for  truarits — 
bright,  breezy,  and  exhilarating  ;  and  as  I  looked  over 
my  shoulder,  the  only  difficulty  vanished,  for  there 
stood  a  pedlar  chaffering  for  a  horn-comb  with  a  girl 
at  a  well.  We  provided  for  a  night's  toilet  from  his 
tin-box,  and  easing  off  the  check-reins  a  couple  of 
holes,  to  enlighten  my  ponies  as  to  the  change  in 
their  day's  work,  we  struck  into  the  traveller's  trot, 
and  sped  away  into  the  eye  of  a  southwest  breeze, 
happy  as  urchins  when  the  schoolmaster  is  on  a  jury. 

When  you  come  here,  I  shall  drive  you  to  the 
Narrmcs  of  the  Susquehannah.  That  is  a  word,  nota 
bene,  which,  in  this  degree  of  latitude,  refers  not  at  all 
to  the.  breadth  of  the  stream.  It  is  a  place  where  the 
mountain,  like  many  a  frowning  coward,  threatens  to 
crowd  its  gentler  neighbor,  but  gives  room  at  its  calm 
approach,  and  annoys  nobody  but  the  passer-by.  The 
road  between  them,  as  you  come  on,  looks  etched 
with  a  thumb-nail  along  the  base  of  the  cliff,  and  you 
would  think  it  a  pokerish  drive,  making  no  allowance 
for  perspective.  The  friable  rock,  however,  makes 
rather  a  smooth  single  track,  and  if  you  have  the  in 
side  when  you  meet  Farmer  Giles  or  the  stage-coach, 
you  have  only  to  set  your  hub  against  the  rock,  and 
"let  them  go  by  as  likes."  The  majestic  and  tranquil 
river  sweeps  into  the  peaked  shadow,  and  on  again, 
with  the  disdain  of  a  beauty  used  to  conquer.  It  re 
minded  me  of  Lady  Blessington's  "do  if  you  dare!" 
when  the  mob  at  the  house  of  lords  threatened  to 
break  her  chariot  windows.  There  was  a  calm  cour 
age  in  Miladi's  French  glove  that  carried  her  through, 
and  so  amid  this  mob  of  mountains,  glides  the  Sus 
quehannah  to  the  sea. 

While  I  am  here,  let  me  jot  down  an  observation 
worthy  the  notice  of  Mr.  Capability  Brown.  This 
cliff"  falls  into  a  a  line  of  hills  running  from  northwest 
to  southeast,  and  by  five  in  the  summer  afternoon, 
their  tall  shoulders  have  nudged  the  sun,  and  the  long, 
level  road  at  their  bases  lies  in  deep  shadow,  for  miles 
along  the  Owaga  and  Susquehannah.  "  Consequence 
is,"  as  my  friend  of  the  "Albany  Daily"  says,  we  can 
steal  a  march  upon  twilight,  and  take  a  cool  drive  be 
fore  tea.  What  the  ruination  shops  on  the  west  side 
of  Broadway  are  to  you,  this  spur  of  the  Allega- 
nies  is  to  me  (minus  the  plate-glass,  and  the  tempta 
tions).  I  value  this — for  the  afternoons  in  July  and 
August  are  hot  and  long;  the  breeze  dies  away,  the 
flies  get  in-doors,  and  with  the  desire  for  motion,  yet 
no  ability  to  stir,  one  longs  for  a  ride  with  Ariel— -\ 
through  "the  veins  o'  the  earth."  Mr.  C.  Brown 
now  would  mark  me  down,  for  this  privilege  of  road 
well  shaded,  some  twenty  pound  in  the  rent.  He  is  a 
man  in  England  who  trades  upon  his  taste.  He  goes  | 
to  your  country-seat  to  tell  you  what  can  be  done 
with  it — what  are  its  unimproved  advantages,  what  to 
do  with  your  wood,  and  what  with  your  water.  He 
would  rate  this  shady  mountain  as  an  eligibility  in  the 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


11 


V" 


site,  to  be  reckoned,  of  course,  as  income.     A  very 
pleasant  man  is  Mr.  Brown ! 

It  occurs  to  me,  Doctor,  that  a  new  branch  of  this 
gentleman's  profession  might  be  profitable.  Why  not 
set  up  a  shop  to  tell  people  what  they  can  make  of 
themselves?  I  have  a  great  mind  to  take  out  a  patent 
for  the  idea.  The  stock  in  trade  would  be  two  chairs 
and  a  green  curtain — (for  taste,  like  rouge,  should  be 
sold  privately) — not  expensive.  I  would  advertise  to 
see  gentlemen  in  the  morning,  ladies  in  the  evening, 
"  secresy  in  all  cases  strictly  observed."  Few  people 
of  either  sex  know  their  own  style.  Your  Madonna 
is  apt  to  romp,  for  instance,  and  your  romp  to  wear 
her  hair  plain  and  a  rosary.  Few  ladies  know  what 
colors  they  look  best  in — whether  smiles  or  tears  are 
most  becoming,  whether  they  appear  to  most  advan 
tage  sitting,  like  Queen  Victoria  and  Tom  Moore  (and 
this  involves  a  delicate  question),  or  standing  and 
walking.  The  world  is  full  of  people  who  mistake 
their  style — fish  Tor  your  net  -every  one.  How  many 
\\  omen  are  nev^r  charming  till  they  forget  themselves ! 
A  belle  is  a  woman  who  knows  her  weapons — colors, 
smiles,  moods,  caprices ;  who  has  looked  at  her  face 
in  the  glass  like  an  artist,  and  knows  what  will  lighten 
a  defect  or  enhance  a  beauty.  The  art  is  as  rare  as 
the  belle.  " Pourquoy,  my  dear  "Knight."  Because 
taste  is,  where  knowledge  was  before  the  discovery  of 
printing — locked  up  with  the  first  possessor.  Why 
should  it  not  be  diffused  ?  What  a  refuge  for  reduced 
gentility  would  be  such  a  vocation.  What  is  now  the 
disease "Sif  fortunes  would  be  then  their  remedy ;  pa 
rents  would  cultivate  a  taste  for  eloquence  in  their 
children,  because  there  is  no  knowing  what  they  may 
come  to — the  reason,  now,  why  they  take  pains  to  re 
press  it. 

I  presume  it  is  in  consequence  of  the  diffusion  of 
printing  that  ignorance  of  the  law  is  no  apology  for 
crime.  Were  taste  within  reach  6f  all  (there  might 
be  dispensaries  for  the  poor),  that  "  shocking  bad  hat" 
of  yours,  my  dear  Doctor,  would  be  a  criminal  offence. 
Our  fat  friend  with  the  long-tailed  coat,  and  the  waist 
at  his  shoulder-blades,  would  be  liable  to  fine  for  mis 
informing  the  tailor  as  to  the  situation  of  his  hips — 
the  tailor  of  course  not  to  blame,  having  nothing  to  go 
by.  Two  scandalous  old  maids  together  would  be 
abated  as  a  nuisance — as  it  is  the  quantity  of  tin-pots, 
which,  in  a  concert  upon  that  tintinnabulary  instru 
ment,  constitutes  a  disturbance  of  the  peace.  The 
reform  would  be  endless.  I  am  not  sure  it  -could  be 
extended  to  bad  taste  in  literature,  for,  like  rebellion, 
the  crime  would  merge  in  the  iiniversality  of  the  of 
fenders.  But  it  would  be  the  general  putting  down  of 
tame  monsters,  now  loose  on  society.  Pensez  y  ! 

What  should  you  think  of  dining  with  a  woman  be 
hind  your  chair  worth  seven  hundred  thousand  pounds 
sterling — well  invested?  You  may  well  stare — but 
unless  a  large  number  of  sensible  people  are  very- 
much  mistaken,  you  may  do  so  any  day,  for  some 
three  shillings,  at  a  small  inn  on  the  Susquehannah. 
Those  who  know  the  road,  leave  behind  them  a  showy, 
porticoed  tavern,  new,  and  carefully  divested  of  all 
trees  and  grass,  and  pull  up  at  the  door  of  the  old  inn 
at  the  place,  a  low,  old-fashioned  house,  built  on  a 
brook-side,  and  with  all  the  appearance  of  a  comfort 
able  farmhouse,  save  only  a  leaning  and  antiquated 
sign-post.  Here  lives  a  farmer  well  off  in  the  world, 
a  good-natured  old  man,  who  for  some  years  has  not 
meant  to  keep  open  tavern,  but  from  the  trouble  of 
taking  down  his  sign-post,  or  the  habit,  and  acquaint 
ance  with  travellers,  gives  all  who  come  what  chance 
fare  may  be  under  the  roof,  and  at  the  old  prices  com 
mon  in  days  when  the  bill  was  not  ridden  by  leagues 
of  white  paint  and  portico.  His  dame,  the  heiress,  is 
a  tall  and  erect  woman  of  fifty  ("  or,  by'r  lady,  three 
score"),  a  smiling,  intelligent,  ready  hostess,  with  the 


natural  manners  of  a  gentlewoman.  Now  and  then,  a 
pale  daughter,  unmarried,  and  twenty-four  or  younger, 
looks  into  the  whitewashed  parlor,  and  if  the  farmer 
is  home  from  the  field,  he  sits  down  with  his  hat  on, 
and  lends  you  a  chat  with  a  voice  sound  and  hearty  as 
the  smell  of  day.  It  is  altogether  a  pleasant  place  to 
loiter  away  the  noon,  and  though  it  was  early  for  din 
ner  when  we  arrived,  we  put  up  our  horses  (the  men 
were  all  a-field),  and  Dame  Raymond  spread  her  white 
cloth,  and  set  on  her  cherry-pie,  while  her  daughter 
broiled  for  us  the  de  quoi  of  the  larder,  in  the  shape 
of  a  salt  mackerel.  The  key  of  the  "bin"  was  in  her 
pocket,  and  we  were  young  enough,  the  dame  said,  as 
she  gave  it  to  us,  to  feed  our  own  horses.  This  good 
woman,  or  this  great  lady,  is  the  only  daughter,  as  I 
understand  it,  of  an  old  farmer  ninety  years  of  age, 
who  has  fallen  heir  to  an  immense  fortune  in  England. 
He  was  traced  out  several  years  ago  by  the  executors, 
and  the  proper  testimonials  of  the  property  placed  in 
his  hands;  but  he  was  old,  and  his  child  was  well  off 
and  happy,  and  he  refused  to  put  himself  to  any  trou 
ble  about  it.  Dame  Raymond  herself  thought  Eng 
land  a  great  way  off;  and  the  pride  of  her  life  is  her 
fine  chickens,  and  to  go  so  far  upon  the  strength  of  a 
few  letters,  leaving  the  farm  and  hen-roost  to  take  care 
of  themselves,  was  an  undertaking  which,  she  felt,  jus 
tified  Farmer  Raymond  in  shaking  his  head.  Lately 
an  enterprising  gentleman  in  the  neighborhood  has 
taken  the  papers,  and  she  consented  to  write  to  her 
father,  who  willingly  made  over  to  her  all  authority  in 
the  matter.  The  claim,  1  understand,  is  as  well  au 
thenticated  as  paper  evidence  can  make  it,  and  the 
probability  is,  that  in  a  few  months  Dame  Raymond 
will  be  more  troubled  with  her  riches  than  she  ever 
was  with  her  chickens. 

We  dined  at  our  leisure,  and  had  plenty  of  sharp 
gossip  with  the  tall  hostess,  who  stood  to  serve  the  tea 
from  a  side-table,  and  between  our  cups  kept  the  flies 
from  her  tempting  cherry-pie  and  brown  sugar,  with  a 
large  fan.  I  have  not  often  seen  a  more  shrewd  and 
sensible  woman,  and  she  laughs  and  philosophizes 
about  her  large  fortune  in  a  way  that  satisfied  me  she 
would  laugh  just  as  cheerly  if  it  should  turn  out  a 
bubble.  She  said  her  husband  had  told  her  "  it  was 
best  not  to  be  proud,  till  she  got  her  money."  The 
only  symptom  that  I  detected  of  castle-building,  was  a 
hint  she  let  slip  of  hoping  to  entertain  travellers,  some 
day,  in  a  better  house.  I  coupled  this  with  another 
remark,  and  suspected  that  the  new  tavern,  with  its  big 
portico  and  blazing  sign,  had  not  taken  the  wind  out 
of  her  sails  without  offence,  and  that,  perhaps,  the 
only  use  of  her  money,  on  which  she  had  determined, 
was  to  build  a  bigger  and  eclipse  the  intruder. 

I  amused  myself  with  watching  her  as  she  bustled 
about  with  old-fashioned  anxiety  to  anticipate  our 
wants,  and  fancying  the  changes  to  which  the  acquisi 
tion  of  this  immense  fortune  might  introduce  her  in 
England.  There  was  her  daughter,  whom  a  little  mil 
linery  would  improve  into  a  very  presentable  heiress, 
cooking  our  mackerel ;  while  Mrs.  Thwaites,  the  gro 
cer's  widow  in  London,  with  no  more  money  probably, 
was  beset  by  half  the  unmarried  noblemen  in  England, 
Lord  Lyndhurst,  it  is  said,  the  most  pressing.  But 
speculation  is  endless,  and  you  shall  go  down  with 
your  trout  line,  dear  Doctor,  and  spin  your  own  cob 
webs  while  Dame  Raymond  cooks  your  fish. 

I  have  spun  out  my  letter  to  such  a  length,  that  I 
have  left  myself  no  room  to  prate  to  you  of  the  beau 
ties  of  the  Chemung,  but  you  are  likely  to  hear 
eimiiiih  of  it,  for  it  is  a  subject  with  which  I  am  just 
now  something  enamoured.  I  think  you  share  with 
me  my  passion  for  rivers.  If  you  have  the  grate  to 
come  and  visit  us,  and  I  survive  the  cholera  you  have 
brought  upon  me,  we  will  visit  this  new  Naiad  in  com 
pany,  and  take  Dame  Raymond  in  our  way.  Adieu. 


12 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


LETTER  VII. 

I  AM  of  opinion,  dear  Doctor,  that  a  letter  to  be  reac 
understandingly,  should  have  marginal  references  to 
the  state  of  the  thermometer,  the  condition  of  the 
writer's  digestion,  and  the  quality  of  his  pen  and  ink 
at  the  time  of  writing.  These  matters,  if  they  do  no 
affect  a  man's  belief  in  a  future  state,  very  sensibly  op 
erate  upon  his  style  of  composition,  sometimes  (so 
with  me  at  least),  upon  his  sentiments  and  minor  mor 
als. 

•  Like  most  other  pen-and-inklings  in  this  be-printec 
country,  I  commenced  authorship  at  precisely  the 
wrong  end — criticism.  Never  having  put  my  hat  upon 
more  than  one  or  two  grown-up  thoughts,  I  still  fee; 
myself  qualified  to  pronounce  upon  any  man's  litera 
ry  stature  from  Walter  Scott  to  whom  you  please — 
God  forgive  me  !  I  remember  (under  this  delusion  ol 
Sathan)  sitting  down  to  review  a  book  by  one  of  the 
most  sensible  women  in  this  country.  It  was  a  pleas 
ant  morning — favorable  symptom  for  the  author.  I 
wrote  the  name  of  the  book  at  the  head  of  a  clean  sheet 
of  Bath  post,  and  the  nib  of  my  pen  capered  nimbly 
away  into  a  flourish,  in  a  fashion  to  coax  praise  out  ol 
a  pumpkin.  What  but  courtesy  on  so  bright  a  morn 
ing  and  with  so  smooth  a  pen  ?  I  was  in  the  middle 
of  the  page,  taking  breath  after  a  long  and  laudatory- 
sentence,  when,  paff!  through  the  window  came  a 
gust  of  air,  labelled  for  the  bare  nerves.  (If  you  have 
ever  been  in  Boston,  perhaps  you  have  observed  that 
an  east  wind,  in  that  city  of  blue  noses  in  June,  gives 
you  a  sensation  like  being  suddenly  deprived  of  your 
skin.)  In  a  shudder  of  disgust  I  bore  down  upon  the 
dot  of  an  i,  and  my  pen,  like  an  "  over-tried  friend," 
gave  way  under  the  pressure.  With  the  wind  in  that 
same  quarter,  dexterity  died.  After  vain  efforts  to 
mend  my  pen  to  its  original  daintiness,  I  amputated  the 
nib  to  a  broad  working  stump,  and  aimed  it  doggedly 
at  the  beginning  of  a  new  paragraph.  But  my  wits 
had  gone  about  with  the  grasshopper  on  the  church- 
steeple.  Nothing  would  trickle  from  that  stumpy 
quill,  either  graceful  or  gracious  ;  and  having  looked 
through  the  book,  but  with  a  view  to  find  matter  to 
praise,  I  was  obliged  to  run  it  over  anew  to  forage  for 
the  east  wind.  "Hence  the  milk  in  the  cocoa-nut," 
as  the  showman  says  of  the  monkey's  stealing  chil 
dren.  I  wrote  a  savage  review,  which  the  reader  was 
expected  to  believe  contained  the  opinions  of  the  re 
viewer  !  !  Oh,  Jupiter  ! 

All  this  is  to  apologize,  not  for  my  own  letter,  which 
I  intend  to  be  a  pattern  of  good  humor,  but  for  a  pas 
sage  in  your  last  (if  written  upon  a  hard  egg  you 
should  have  mentioned  it  in  the  margin),  in  which, 
apropos  of  my  jaunt  to  the  Chemung,  you  accuse  me 
of  being  glad  to  get  away  from  my  hermitage.  I 
could  write  you  a  sermon  now  on  the  nature  of  content, 
but  you  would  say  the  very  text  is  apocryphal.  My 
"lastly,"  however,  would  go  to  prove  that  there  is  big 
otry  in  retirement  as  in  all  things  either  good  or  pleas- 
ureable.  The  eye  that  never  grows  familiar  with  na 
ture,  needs  freshening  from  all  tilings  else.  A  room,  a 
chair,  a  musical  instrument,  a  horse,  a  dog,  the  road 
you  drive  daily,  and  the  well  you  drink  from,  are  all 
more  prized  when  left  and  returned  to.  The  habit  of 
turning  back  daily  from  a  certain  mile-stone,  in  your 
drive,  makes  that  milestone  after  awhile,  a  prison  wall. 
It  is  pleasant  to  pass  it,  though  the  road  beyond  be 
less  beautiful.  If  I  were  once  more  "  brave  Master 
Shoetie,  the  great  traveller,"  it  would  irk  me,  I  dare 
say,  to  ride  thirty  miles  in  a  rail-car  drawn  by  one  slow 
horse.  Yet  it  is  a  pleasant  "  lark"  now,  to  run  down 
to  Ithaca  for  a  night,  in  this  drowsy  conveyance, 
though  I  exchange  a  cool  cottage  for  a  fly-nest,  "lav- 
endered  linen"  for  abominable  cotton,  and  the  service 
of  civil  William  for  the  "  young  lady  that  takes  care 
of  the  chambers."  I  like  the  cobwebs  swept  out 


of  my  eyes.  I  like  to  know  what  reason  I  have  to 
keep  my  temper  among  my  household  gods.  I  like 
to  pay  an  extravagant  bill  for  villanous  entertainment 
abroad,  and  come  back  to  escape  ruin  in  the  luxuries 
of  home. 

Doctor!  were  you  ever  a  vagabond  for  years  togeth 
er  ?  I  know  you  have  hung  your  hat  on  the  south 
pole,  but  you  are  one  of  those  "  friend  of  the  family" 
men,  who  will  travel  from  Dan  to  Beersheba,  and  be 
at  no  charges  for  lodging.  You  can  not  understand,  1 
think,  the  life  from  which  I  have  escaped — the  life  of 
"  mine  ease  in  mine  inn."  Pleasant  mockery  !  You 
have  never  had  the  hotel  fever — never  sickened  of  the 
j  copperplate  human  faces  met  exclusively  in  those 
homes  of  the  homeless — never  have  gone  distracted  at 
the  eternal  "one  piece  of  soap,  and  the  last  occupant's 
tooth-brush  and  cigar  !"  To  be  slighted  any  hour  of 
the  evening  for  a  pair  of  slippers  and  a  tin  candle 
stick — to  sleep  and  wake  amid  the  din  of  animal  wants, 
complaining  and  supplied — to  hear  no  variety  of  hu 
man  tone  but  the  expression  of  these  baser  necessities 
— to  be  waited  on  either  by  fellows  who  would  bring 
your  coffin  as  unconcernedly  as  your  breakfast,  or  by  a 
woman  who  is  rude,  because  insulted  when  kind — to  lie 
always  in  strange  beds — to  go  home  to  a  house  of  stran 
gers — to  be  weary  without  pity,  sick  without  soothing, 
sad  without  sympathy — to  sit  at  twilight  by  your  lone 
ly  window,  in  some  strange  city,  and,  with  a  heart 
which  a  child's  voice  would  dissolve  in  tenderness,  to 
see  door  after  door  open  and  close  upon  fathers,  broth 
ers,  friends,  expected  and  welcomed  by  the  beloved 
and  the  beloving — these  are  costly  miseries  against 
which  I  almost  hourly  weigh  my  cheaper  happiness  iiu 
a  home  !  Yet  this  is  the  life  pined  after  by  the  grown 
up  boy — the  life  called  fascinating  and  mystified  in  ro 
mance — the  life,  dear  Doctor,  for  whicli  even  yourself 
can  fancy  I  am  "  imping  my  wing"  anew  !  Oh,  no  ! 
I  have  served  seven  years  for  this  Rachel  of  content 
ment,  and  my  heart  is  no  Laban  to  put  me  off  with  a 
Leah. 

"A!"  Imagine  this  capital  letter  laid  on  its  back, 
and  pointed  south  by  east,  and  you  have  a  pretty  fair 
diagram  of  the  junction  of  the  Susquehannah  and  the 
Chemung.  The  note  of  admiration  describes  a  su 
perb  line  of  mountains  at  the  back  of  the  Chemung 
valley,  and  the  quotation  marks  express  the  fine  bluffs 
that  overlook  the  meeting  of  the  waters  at  Athens. 
The  cross  of  the  letter  (say  a  line  of  four  miles),  de 
fines  a  road  from  one  river  to  the  other,  by  which 
travellers  up  the  Chemung  save  the  distance  to  the 
point  of  the  triangle,  and  the  area  between  is  a  broad 
plain,  just  now  as  fine  a  spectacle  of  teeming  harvest 
as  you,  would  find  on  the  Genesee. 

As  the  road  touches  the  Chemung,  you  pass  under 
the  base  of  a-  round  mountain,  once  shaped  like  a 
sugar-loaf,  but  now  with  a  top,  o'  the  fashion  of  a 
schoolboy's  hat  punched  in  to  drink  from;  the  floor- 
worn  edge  of  the  felt  answering  to  a  fortification 

around  the  rim  of  the   hill  built  by  I  should 

be  obliged  if  you  would  tell  me  whom.  They  call 
it  Spanish  Hill,  and  the  fortifications  were  old  at 
the  time  of  the  passing  through  of  Sullivan's  ar 
my.  It  is  as  pretty  a  fort  as  my  Uncle  Toby  could 
have  seen  in  Flanders,  and  was,  doubtless,  occupied 
by  gentlemen  soldiers  long  before  the  Mayflower 
moored  off  the  rock  of  Plymouth.  The  tradition 
runs  that  an  Indian  chief  once  ascended  it  to  look  for 
Spanish  gold;  but  on  reaching  the  top,  was  enveloped 
in  clouds  and  thunder,  and  returned  with  a  solemn 
command  from  the  spirit  of  the  mountain  that  no  In 
dian  should  ever  set  foot  on  it  again.  An  old  lady, 
who  lives  in  the  neighborhood  (famous  for  killing  two 
tories  with  a  stone  in  her  stocking),  declares  that  the 
dread  of  this  mountain  is  universal  among  the  tribes, 
and  that  nothing  would  induce  a  red  man  to  ascend  it. 
This  looks  as  if  the  sachem  had  found  what  he  went 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


13 


after;  and  it  is  a  modern  fact,  I  understand,  that  a  man 
hired  to  plough  on  the  hill-side,  suddenly  left  his  em 
ployer  and  purchased  a  .large  farm,  by  nobody  knows 
what  windfall  of  fortune.  Half  this  mountain  belongs 
to  a  gentleman  who  is  building  a  country-seat  on  an 
exquisite  site  between  it  and  the  river,  and  to  the  kind 
ness  of  his  son  and  daughter,  who  accompanied  us  in 
our  ascent,  we  are  indebted  for  a  most  pleasant  hour, 
and  what  information  1  have  given  you. 

I  will  slip  in  here  a  memorandum  for  any  invalid, 
town-weary  person,  or  new-married  couple,  to  whom 
you  may  have  occasion,  in  your  practice,  to  recom 
mend  change  of  air.  The  house  formerly  occupied 
by  this  gentleman,  a  roomy  mansion,  in  a  command 
ing  and  beautiful  situation,  is  now  open  as  an  inn,  and 
I  know  nowhere  a  retreat  so  private  and  desirable.  It 
is  near  both  the  Susquehannah  and  the  Chemung,  the 
hills  laced  with  trout-streams,  four  miles  from  Athens, 
and  half  way  between  Owegoand  Ehnira.  The  scen 
ery  all  about  is  delicious,  and  the  house  well  kept  at 
country  charges.  My  cottage  is  some  sixteen  miles 
off;  and  if  you  give  any  of  your  patients  a  letter  to 
me,  I  will  drive  up  and  see  them,  with  a  posy  and  a  pot 
of  jelly.  You  will  understand  that  they  must  be  peo 
ple  who  do  not  "add  perfume  to  the  violet."  In  my 
way — simple. 

I  can  in  no  way  give  you  an  idea  of  the  beauty  of 
the  Chemung  river  from  Brigham's  Inn  to  Ehnira. 
We  entered  immediately  upon  the  Narrows — a  spot 
where  the  river  follows  into  a  curve  of  the  mountain, 
like  an  inlaying  of  silver  around  the  bottom  of  an  em 
erald  cup — the  brightest  water,  the  richest  foliage — 
and  a  landscape  of  meadow  between  the  horns  of  the 
crescent  that  would  be  like  the  finest  park  scenery  in 
England,  if  the  boldness  of  the  horizon  did  not  mix 
with  it  a  resemblance  to  Switzerland. 

We  reached  Ehnira  at  sunset.  What  shall  I  say 
of  it  ?  From  a  distance,  its  situation  is  most  beauti 
ful.  It  lies  (since  we  have  begun  upon  the  alphabet) 
in  the  tail  of  a  magnificent  L,  formed  by  the  bright 
winding  of  the  river.  Perhaps  the  surveyor,  instead 
of  deriving  its  name  from  his  sweetheart,  called  it  L. 
mirabilc — corrupted  to  vulgar  comprehension,  Elmi- 
ra.  If  he  did  not,  he  might,  and  I  will  lend  him  the 
etymology. 

The  town  is  built  against  a  long  island,  covered 
with  soft  green-sward,  and  sprinkled  with  noble  trees ; 
a  promenade  of  unequalled  beauty  and  convenience, 
but  that  all  which  a  village  can  muster  of  unsightli- 
ness  has  chosen  the  face  of  the  river-bank  "  to  turn 
its  lining  to  the  sun."  Fie  on  you,  Ehnira  !  I  in 
tend  to  get  up  a  memorial  to  Congress,  praying  that 
the  banks  of  rivers  in  all  towns  settled  henceforth, 
shall  be  government  property,  to  be  reserved  and 
planted  for  public  grounds.  It  was  the  design  of 
William  Penn  at  Philadelphia,  and  think  what  a 
binding  it  would  have  been  to  his  chequer-board. 
Fancy  a  pier  and  promenade  along  the  Hudson  at 
New  York  !  Imagine  it  a  feature  of  every  town  in 
this  land  of  glorious  rivers  ! 

There  is  a  singular  hotel  at  Elmira  (big  as  a  state- 
house,  and  be-turreted  and  be-columned  according  to 
the  most  approved  system  of  impossible  rent  and 
charges  to  make  it  possible),  in  the  plan  of  which, 
curious  enough,  the  chambers  were  entirely  forgotten. 
The  house  is  all  parlors  and  closets !  We  were 
shown  into  superb  drawing-rooms  (one  for  each  party), 
with  pier-glasses,  windows  to  the  floor,  expensive  fur 
niture,  and  a  most  polite  landlord  ;  and  began  to  think 
the  civilization  for  which  he  had  been  looking  east, 
had  stepped  over  our  heads  and  gone  on  to  the  Paci 
fic.  Excellent  supper  and  civil  service.  At  dark, 
two  very  taper  mutton  candles  set  on  the  superb  mar 
ble-table — but  that  was  but  a  trifling  incongruity. 
After  a  call  from  a  pleasant  friend  or  two,  and  a  walk, 
we  made  an  early  request  to  be  shown  to  our  bed 


rooms.  The  "young  lady,  that  sometimes  uses  a 
iroom  for  exercise,"  opened  a  closet-door  with  a  look 
of  la  vo'iln  !  ;\\\<\  left  us  ^\<-  rrhlcss  with  astonishment, 
Then-  was  a  bed  of  the  dimensions  of  a  saint's  niche, 
but  no  window  by  which,  if  stilled,  the  soul  could  es 
cape  to  its  destination.  Yet  here  we  were,  evidently 
abandoned  on  a  hot  night  in  July,  with  a  door  to  shut 
if  we  thought  it  prudent,  and  a  candle-wick  like  an 
ignited  poodle-dog  to  assist  in  the  process  of  suffoca 
tion!  I  hesitated  about  calling  up  the  landlord,  for, 
as  I  said  before,  he  was  a  most  polite  and  friendly 
person ;  and  if  we  were  to  give  up  the  ghost  in  that 
little  room,  it  was  evidently  in  the  ordinary  arrange 
ments  of  the  house.  "Why  not  sleep  in  the  parlor?" 
you  will  have  said.  So  we  did.  But,  like  the  king 
of  Spain,  who  was  partly  roasted  because  nobody 
came  to  move  back  the  fire,  this  obvious  remedy  did 
not  at  the  instant  occur  to  me.  The  pier-glass  and 
other  splendors  of  course  did  duty  as  bed-room  furni 
ture,  and,  I  may  say,  we  slept  sumptuously.  Our 
friends  in  the  opposite  parlor  did  as  we  did,  but  took  the 
moving  of  the  bed  to  be,  tout  bonnement,  what  the  land 
lord  expected.  I  do  riot  think  so,  yet  I  was  well  pleased 
with  him  and  his  entertainment,  and  shall  stop  at  the 
"  Eagle"  incontinently — if  I  can  choose  my  apartment. 
I  am  not  sure  but,  in  other  parts  of  the  house,  the 
blood-thirsty  architect  has  constructed  some  of  these 
smothering  places  without  parlors.  God  help  the  un 
wary  traveller! 

Talking  of  home  (we  were  at  home  to  dinner  the 
next  day),  I  wonder  whether  it  is  true  that  adverse  for 
tunes  have  thrown  Mrs.  Sigourney's  beautiful  home 
into  the  market.     It  is  offered  for  sale,  and  the  news 
papers  say  as  much.     If  so,  it  is  pity,  indeed.     I  was 
there  once;  and  to  leave  so  delicious  a  spot  must,  I 
think,  breed  a  heart-ache.     In  general,  unless  the  re 
verse  is  extreme,  compassion  is  thrown  away  on  those 
who  leave  a  large  house  to  be  comfortable  in  a  small 
one ;  but  she  is  a  poetess,  and  a  most  true  and  sweet 
one,  and  has  a  property  in  that  house,  and  in  all  its 
trees  and  flowers,  which  can  neither  be  bought   nor 
sold.     It  is  robbery  to  sell  it  for  its  apparent  value. 
You  can  understand,  for  "your  spirit  is  touched  to 
these  fine  issues,"  how  a  tree  that  the  eye  of  genius 
has  rested  on  while  the  mind  was  at  work  among  its 
bright  fancies,  becomes  the  cradle  and  home  of  these 
fancies,     The  brain  seems  driven  out  of  its  workshop 
if  you  cut  it  down.    So  with  walks.    So  with  streams. 
So  with  the  modifications  of  natural  beauty  seen  thence 
habitually — sunrise,  sunsetting,  moonlight.     In  pecu 
liar  places  these  daily  glories  take  peculiar  effects,  and 
in  that  guise  genius  becomes  accustomed  to  recognise 
arid  love  them  most.     Who  can  buy  this  at  auction ! 
Who  can  weave  this  golden  mesh  in  another  tree — 
give  the  same  voices  to  another  stream — the  same  sun 
set  to  other  hills?     This  fairy  property,  invisible  as  it 
is,  is  acquired  slowly.  Habit,  long  association,  the  con 
nexion  with  many  precious  thoughts  (the  more  pre 
cious  the   farther   between),   make  it  precious.     To 
sell  such  a  spot  for  its  wood  and  brick,  is  to  value 
Tom  Moore  for  what  he  will  weigh — Daniel  Webster 
for  his  superficies.     Then  there  ivill  be  a  time  (I  trust 
it  is  far  off)  when  the  property  will  treble  even  in  sale 
able  value.     The  bee  and  the  poet  must  be  killed  be 
fore  their  honey  is  tasted.    For  how  much  more  would 
Abbotsford  sell  now  than  in  the  lifetime  of  Scott  ?^  For 
what  could  you  buy  Ferney — Burns's  cottage — Shak- 
spere's  house  at  Stratford  ?     I  have  not  the  honor  of 
a  personal  acquaintance  with   Mrs.   Sigourney,  and 
can  not  judge  with  what  philosophy  she  may  sustain 
this  reverse.     But  bear  it  well  or  ill,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  it  falls  heavily  ;  and  it  is  one  of  those  instances, 
I  think,  where  public  feeling  should  be  called  on  to 
interpose.      But  in  what  shape  ?     I  have  always  ad 
mired  the  generosity  and  readiness  with  which  actors 
play  for  the  benefit  of  a  decayed  "  brother  of  the  sock." 


14 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


Let  American  authors  contribute  to  make  up  a  volume, 
and  let  the  people  of  Hartford,  who  live  in  the  light 
of  this  bright  spirit,  head  the  subscription  with  ten 
thousand  copies.  You  live  among  literary  people, 
dear  Doctor,  and  your  "smile  becomes  you  better  than 
any  man's  in  all  Phrygia."  You  can  set  it  afloat  if  you 
will.  My  name  is  among  the  W.'s,  but  I  will  be 
ready  in  my  small  turn. 

"  Now  God  b'wi'you,  good  Sir  Topas !"  for  on  this 
sheet  there  is  no  more  room,  and  I  owe  you  but  one. 
Correspondence,  like  thistles,  "  is  not  blown  away  till 
it  hath  got  too  high  a  top."  Adieu. 


LETTER  VIII. 

MY  DEAR  DOCTOR  :  What  can  keep  you  in  town 
during  this  insufferable  hot  solstice  ?  I  can  not  fancy, 
unless  you  shrink  from  a  warm  welcome  in  the  coun 
try.  It  is  too  hot  for  enthusiasm,  and  I  have  sent  the 
cart  to  the  hay-field,  and  crept  under  the  bridge  in 
my  slippers,  as  if  I  had  found  a  day  to  be  idle,  though 
I  promised  myself  to  see  the  harvest  home,  without 
missing  sheaf  or  winrow.  Yet  it  must  be  cooler  here 
than  where  you  are,  for  I  see  accounts  of  drought  on 
the  seaboard,  while  with  us  every  hot  noon  has  bred 
its  thunder-shower,  and  the  corn  on  the  dry  hill-sides 
is  the  only  crop  not  kept  back  by  the  moisture.  Still, 
the  waters  are  low,  and  the  brook  at  my  feet  has  de 
pleted  to  a  slender  vein,  scarce  stouter  than  the  pulse 
that  nutters  under  your  thumb  in  the  slightest  wrist 
in  your  practice.  My  lobster  is  missing — probably 
gone  to  "  the  springs."  My  swallowlets  too,  who 
have,  "  as  it  were,  eat  paper  and  drunk  ink,"  have 
flitted  since  yesterday,  like  illiterate  gipseys,  leaving 
no  not*  of  their  departure.  "  Who  shall  tell  Priam 
so,  or  Hecuba."  The  old  swallows  circle  about  as  if 
they  expected  them  again.  Heaven  send  they  are  not 
in  some  crammed  pocket  in  that  red  school-house, 
unwilling  listeners  to  the  vexed  alphabet,  or,  perhaps, 
squeezed  to  death  in  the  varlet's  perplexity  at  crook 
ed  S. 

I  have  blotted  that  last  sentence  like  a  school-boy, 
but  between  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  it,  I  have 
lent  a  neighbor  my  side-hill  plough,  besides  answering, 
by  the  way,  rather  an  embarrassing  question.  My 
catechiser  lives  above  me  on  the  drink  (his  name  for 
the  river),  and  is  one  of  those  small  farmers,  common 
here,  who  live  without  seeing  money  from  one  year's 
end  to  the  other.  He  never  buys,  he  trades.  He 
takes  a  bag  of  wheat,  or  a  fleece,  to  the  village  for  salt 
fish  and  molasses,  pays  his  doctor  in  corn  or  honey, 
and  "changes  work"  with  the  blacksmith,  the  sad 
dler,  and  the  shoemaker.  He  is  a  shrewd  man  withal, 
likes  to  talk,  and  speaks  Yankee  of  the  most  Boeotian 
fetch  and  purity.  Imagine  a  disjointed-looking  En- 
celadus,  in  a  homespun  sunflower-colored  coat,  and 
small  yellow  eyes,  expressive  of  nothing  but  the  merest 
curiosity,  looking  down  on  me  by  throwing  himself 
over  the  railing  like  a  beggar's  wallet  of  broken  meats. 

"  Good  morning,  Mr.  Willis?/ !" 

From  hearing  ray  name  first  used  in  the  possessive 
case,  probably  (Willis's  farm,  or  cow),  he  regularly 
throws  me  in  that  last  syllable. 

"Ah  !  good  morning  !"  (Looking  up  at  the  inter 
ruption,  I  made  that  unsightly  blot  which  you  have 
just  excused.) 

"  You  aint  got  no  side-hill  plough?" 

"  Yes,  I  have,  and  I'll  lend  it  to  you  with  pleasure." 

"Wai!  you're  darn'd  quick.  I  warnt  a  go'n'  to 
ask  you  quite  yet.  Writin'  to  your  folks  at  hum  ?" 

"No!" 

"  Making  out  a  lease !" 

"No!" 

"  How  you  do  spin  it  off !  You  haint  always  work'd 
on  a  farm,  have  ye  ?" 


It  is  a  peculiarity  (a  redeeming  peculiarity,  I  think), 
of  the  Yankees,  that  though  their  questions  are  rude, 
they  are  never  surprised  if  you  do  not  answer  them. 
I  did  not  feel  that  the  thermometer  warranted  me  in 
going  into  the  history  of  my  life  to  my  overhanging 
neighbor,  and  I  busied  myself  in  crossing  my  t's  and 
dotting  my  i's  very  industriously.  He  had  a  maggot 
in  his  brain,  however,  and  must  e'en  be  delivered  of  it. 
He  pulled  off  a  splinter  or  two  from  under  the  bridge 
with  his  long  arms,  and  during  the  silence  William 
came  to  me  with  a  message,  which  he  achieved  with 
his  English  under-tone  of  respect. 

"  Had  to  lick  that  boy  some,  to  make  him  so  darn'd 
civil,  hadn't  ye  ?" 

"  You  have  a  son  about  his  age,  I  think." 
"  Yes  ;  but  I   guess  he  couldn't  be  scared  to  talk 
that  way.     What's  the  critter  'fear'd  on  ?" 
No  answer. 

"  You  haiut  been  a  minister,  have  ye?" 
"  No  !" 

"Wai !  they  talk  a  heap  about  your  place.  I  say, 
Mr.  Willisy,  you  aint  nothing  particular,  be  ye?" 

You  should  have  seen,  dear  Doctor,  the  look  of 
eager  and  puzzled  innocence  with  which  this  rather 
difficult  question  was  delivered.  Something  or  other 
had  evidently  stimulated  my  good  neighbor's  curiosi 
ty,  but  whether  I  had  been  blown  up  in  a  steamboat, 
or  had  fatted  a  prize  pig,  or  what  was  my  claim  to  the 
digito  monstrari,  it  was  more  than  half  his  errand  to 
discover.  I  have  put  down  our  conversation,  I  be 
lieve,  with  the  accuracy  of  a  short-hand  writer.  Now, 
is  not  this  a  delicious  world  in  which,  out  of  a  mu 
seum  neither  stuffed  nor  muzzled,  you  may  find  such 
an  arcadian  ?  What  a  treasure  he  would  be  to  those 
ancient  mariners  of  polite  life,  who  exist  but  to  tell 
you  of  their  little  peculiarities  ! 

I  have  long  thought,  dear  Doctor,  and  this  reminds 
me  of  it,  that  there  were  two  necessities  of  society  un 
fitted  with  a  vocation.     (If  you  know  of  any  middle- 
aged  gentlemen  out  of  employment,  I  have  no  objec 
tion  to  your   reserving   the  suggestion  for  a  private 
charity,  but  otherwise,  I  would  communicate  it  to  the 
world  as  a  new  light.)    The  first  is  a  luxury  which  no 
hotel  should  be   without,  no  neighborhood,  no  thor- 
j  oughfare,   no    editor's   closet.      I   mean  a  professed, 
j  salaried,  stationary,  and  confidential  listener.     Fancy 
the  comfort  of  such  a  thing.     There  should  be  a  well- 
I  dressed  silent  gentleman,  for  instance,  pacing  habitu- 
|  ally  the  long  corridor  of  the  Astor,  with  a  single  button 
on  his  coat  of  the  size  of  a  door-handle.     You  enter 
in   a  violent  hurry,  or  with  a  mind  tenanted  to  suit 
yourself,   and   some    faineant  babbler,  weary  of  his 
emptiness,  must  needs  take  you  aside,  and  rob  you  of 
jtwo  mortal  hours,  more  or  less,  while  lie  tells  you  his 
I  tale  of  nothing.     If  "  a  penny  saved  is  a  penny  got," 
what  a  value  it  would  add  to  life  to  be  able  to  transfer 
|  this  leech  of  precious  time,  by  laying  his  hand  polite- 
jly  on  the  large  button  of  the  listener!     "Finish  your 
story  to  this  gentleman  !"    quoth  you.     Then,  again, 
there  is  your  unhappy  man  in  hotels,  newly  arrived, 
without  an  acquaintance  save  the  crisp  and  abbrevia 
ting  bar-keeper,   who  wanders  up  and  down,  silent- 
sick,  and  more  solitary  in  the  crowd  about  him  than 
the  hermit  on  the  lone  column  of  the  temple  of  Jupi 
ter.     What  a  mercy  to  such  a  sufferer  to  be  able  to 
step  to  the  bar,  and  order  a  listener.     Or  to  send  for 
him  with  a   bottle  of  wine  when  dining  alone  (most 
particularly  alone),  at  a  table  of  two  hundred  !     Or  to 
ring  for  him  in  number  four  hundred  and  ninety-three, 
of  a  rainy  Sunday,  with  punch  and  cigars  !     I  am  de 
ceived  in  Stelston  of  the  Astor,  if  he  is  not  philoso 
pher   enough   to   see   the  value   of  this   suggestion. 
"  Baths  in  the  house,  and  a  respectable  listener  if  de 
sired,"  would  be  an  attractive  advertisement,  let  me' 
promise  you  ! 

The  other  vocation  to  which  I  referred,  would  be 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


15 


that  of  a  sort  of  ambulant  dictionary,  used  mostly  at 
evening  parties.  ]t  should  he  a  gentleman  not  dis 
tinguishable  from  the  common  animated  wall-flower, 
except  by  some  conventional  sign,  as  a  hit  of  blue  rib 
and  in  his  button-hole.  His  qualifications  should  be- 
to  know  all -persons  moving  in  the  circle,  and  some 
thing  about  them — to  be  up,  in  short,  to  th&,io.wn 
ij;o-i.-<ip — what  Miss  Thing's  expectations  are  —  who 
"  my  friend"  is  with  the  died  mustache — and  which 
of  the  stout  ladies  on  the  sola  are  the,  forecast  shad 
ows  of  coming  balls,  or  the  like  desirablenesses.  There 
are  a  thousand  invisible  cobwebs  threaded  through  so 
ciety,  which  the  stranger  is  apt  to  cross  a  trovers — 
committing  his  enthusiasm,  for  instance,  to  the  deaf 
ears  of  a  fiancee  ;  or,  from  ignorance,  losing  opportu 
nities  of  knowing  the  clever,  the  witty,  and  the  famous 
— all  of  whom  look,  at  a  first  glance,  very  much  like 
other  people.  The  gentleman  with  the  blue  riband, 
you  see,  would  remedy  all  this.  You  might  make 
for  him  after  you  bow  to  the  lady  of  the  house,  and  in 
ten  minutes  put  yourself  au  courantof  the  entire  field. 
You  might  apply  to  him  (if  you  had  been  absent  to 
Santa  Fe  or  the  Pyramids)  for  the  last  new  shibboleth, 
the  town  rage,  the  name  of  the  new  play  or  poem,  the 
form  and  color  of  the  freshest  change  in  the  kaleido 
scope  of  society.  It  is  not  uncommon  for  sensible 
yt  people  to  retire,  and  "sweep  and  garnish"  their  self- 
respect  in  a  month's  seclusion.  It  is  some  time  before 
they  become  au  fait  again  of  what  it  is  necessary  to 
know  of  the  follies  of  the  lionr.  The  graceful  yet 
bitter  wit,  the  unoffending  yet  pointed  rally,  the  con 
fidence  which  colors  all  defeats  like  successes,  are  del 
icate  weapons,  the  dexterity  at  which  depends  much 
on  familiarity  with  the  ground.  What  an  advent  to 
the  diffident  and  the  embarrassed  would  be  such  a 
profession !  How  many  persons  of  wit  and  spirit 
there  are  in  society  blank  for  lack  of  confidence,  who, 
with  such  a  friend  in  the  corner,  would  come  out  like 
magic-ink  to  the  fire  !  "  Ma  hardiesse"  (says  the  as 
piring  rocket),  "  vient  de  mon  ardeur  /"  But  the  de 
vice  would  lose  its  point  did  it  take  a  jack-o'-lantern 
for  a  star.  Mention  these  little  hints  to  your  cleverest 
female  friend,  dear  Doctor.  It  takes  a  woman  to  in 
troduce  an  innovation. 

Since  I  wrote  to  you,  I  have  been  adopted  by  per 
haps  the  most  abominable  cur  you  will  see  in  your 
travels.  I  mention  it  to  ward  off  the  first  impression 
— for  a  dog  gives  a  character  to  a  house ;  and  I  would 
not  willingly  have  a  friend  light  on  such  a  monster  in 
my  premises  without  some  preparation.  His  first  ap 
parition  was  upon  a  small  floss  carpet  at  the  foot  of  an 
ottoman,  the  most  luxurious  spot  in  the  house,  of 
which  he  had  taken  possession  with  a  quiet  impudence 
that  perfectly  succeeded.  A  long,  short-legged"  cur, 
of  the  color  of  spoiled  mustard,  with  most  base  tail 
and  erect  ears — villanous  in  all  his  marks.  Rather  a 
dandy  gentleman,  from  New-York,  was  calling  on  us 
when  he  was  discovered,  and  presuming  the  dog  to  be 
his,  we  forbore  remark ;  and,  assured  by  this  chance 
indulgence,  he  stretched  himself  to  sleep.  The  in 
dignant  outcry  with  which  the  gentleman  disclaimed 
all  knowledge  of  him,  disturbed  his  slumber;  and, 
not  to  leave  us  longer  in  doubt,  he  walked  confidently 
across  the  room,  and  seated  himself  between  my  feet 
with  a  canine  freedom  I  had  never  seen  exhibited,  ex 
cept  upon  most  familiar  acquaintance.  I  saw  clearly 
that  our  visitor  looked  upon  m?/  disclaimer  as  a  "  fetch." 
It  would  have  been  perilling  my  credit  for  veracity  to 
deny  the  dog.  So  no  more  was  said  about  him,  and 
since  that  hour  he  has  kept  himself  cool  in  my  shad 
ow.  I  have  tried  to  make  him  over  to  the  kitchen, 
but  he  will  neither  feed  nor  stay  with  them.  I  can 
neither  outrun  him  on  horseback,  nor  lose  him  by 
crossing  ferries.  Very  much  to  the  discredit  of  my 
taste,  I  am  now  never  seen  without  this  abominable 
follower — and  there  is  no  help  for  it,  unless  I  kill  him, 


which,  since  he  loves  me,  would  be  worse  than  shoot 
ing  the  albatross ;  besides,  I  have  at  least  a  drachm 
(three  scruples)  of  Pythagoreanism  in  me,  and  "  fear 
to  kill  woodcock,  lest  I  dispossess  the  soul  of  my 
grandam."  I  shall  look  to  the  papers  to  see  what 
friend  I  have  lost  in  Italy,  or  the  East.  I  can  think 
of  some  who  would  come  to  me  thus. 

Adieu,  dear  Doctor.  Send  me  a  good  name  for  my 
cur — for  since  he  will  have  me,  why  I  must  needs  be 
his,  and  he  shall  be  graced  with  an  appellation.  I 
think  his  style  of  politics  might  be  worth  something 
in  love.  If  I  were  the  lady,  it  would  make  a  fair  be 
ginning.  But  I  will  waste  no  more  ink  upon  you. 


LETTER  IX. 

MY  DEAR  DOCTOR  :  As  they  say  an  oyster  should 
be  pleased  with  his  apotheosis  in  a  certain  sauce,  I 
was  entertained  with  the  cleverness  of  your  letter 
though  you  made  minced-meat  of  my  trout-fishing. 
Under  correction,  however,  I  still  cover  the  barb  of  my 
"  fly,"  and  so  I  must  do  till  I  can  hook  my  trout  if  he 
but  graze  the  bait  with  his  whisker.  You  are  an 
alumnus  of  the  gentle  science,  in  which  I  am  but  a 
neophyte,  and  your  fine  rules  presuppose  the  dexteri 
ty  of  a  practised  angler.  Now  a  trout  (I  have  ob 
served  in  my  small  way)  will  jump  once  at  your  naked 
fly  ;  but  if  he  escape,  he  will  have  no  more  on't,  un 
less  there  is  a  cross  of  the  dace  in  him.  As  it  is  a  fish 
that  follows  his  nose,  however,  the  smell  of  the  worm 
will  bring  him  to  the  lure  again,  and  if  your  awkward 
ness  give  him  time,  he  will  stick  to  it  till  he  has 
cleaned  the  hook.  Probatum  est. 

You  may  say  this  is  unscientific,  but,  if  I  am  to 
breakfast  from  the  contents  of  my  creel,  I  must  be 
left  with  my  worm  and  my  ignorance. 

Besides — hang  rules  !  No  two  streams  are  alike — 
no  two  men  (who  are  not  fools)  fish  alike.  Walton 
and  Wilson  would  find  some  new  "  wrinkle,"  if  they 
were  to  try  these  wild  waters  ;  and,  to  generalize  the 
matter,  I  have,  out  of  mathematics,  a  distrust  of  rules, 
descriptions,  manuals,  etc.,  amounting  to  a  'phobia. 
Experience  was  always  new  to  me.  I  do  not  seem  to 
myself  ever  to  have  seen  the  Rome  I  once  read  of. 
The  Venice  I  know  is  not  the  Venice  of  story  nor  of 
travellers'  books.  There  are  two  Londons  in  my 
mind — one  where  I  saw  whole  shelves  of  my  library 
walking  about  in  coats  and  petticoats,  and  another 
where  there  was  nothing  visible  through  the  fog  but 
fat  men  with  tankards  of  porter — one  memory  of  it  all 
glittering  with  lighted  rooms,  bright  and  kind  faces, 
men  all  manly,  and  women  all  womanly,  and  another 
memory  (got  from  books)  where  every  man  was  surly, 
and  dressed  in  a  buff  waistcoat,  and  every  woman  a 
giantess,  in  riding-hat  and  boots.  ,— . 

It  is  delightful  to  think   how  •i^&yy'  every  thing   is, 
spite  of  description.     Never  believe,  dear  Doctor,  that  c-, 
there  is  an  old  world.     There  is  no  such  place,  on 
my  honor  !     You  will  find  England,   France,  Italy,      \ 
and  the   East,  after  all  you  have  read  and  heard,  as 
altogether  new  as  if  they  were  created  by  your  eye,   / 
and  were  never  sung,  painted,   nor  be-written — you«/ 
will  indeed.     Why — to  be  sure — what  were  the  world 
else?     A  pawnbroker's  closet,  where  every  traveller 
had  left  his  clothes  for  you  to  wear  after  him  !     No  ! 
no!     Thanks  to  Providence,  all  things  are  new  !    Pen 
and  ink~can  not  take  the  gloss  off  your  eyes,  nor  can 
any  man  look  through  them  as  you  do.     I  do  not  be 
lieve  the  simplest  matter— sunshine  or  verdure— has 
exactly  the  same  look  to  any  two  people  in  the  world. 
How  much  less  a  human  face — a  landscape — a  broad 
kingdom  ?    Travellers  are  very  pleasant  people.    They 
I  tell  you  what  picture  was  produced  in  their  brain  by 
the  things  they  saw  ;  but  if  they  forestalled  novelty  by 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


that,  I  would  as  soon  read  them  as  beseech  a  thief  to 
steal  my  dinner.  Hoio  it  looks  to  one  pair  of  eyes  ! 
would  be  a  good  reminder  pencilled  on  the  margin  of 
many  a  volume. 

-"I  have  run  my  ploughshare,  in  this  furrow,  upon  a 
root  of  philosophy,  which  has  cured  heart-aches  for 
me  ere  now.  I  struck  upon  it  almost  accidentally, 
while  administering  consolation,  years  since,  to  a  sen 
sitive  friend,  whose  muse  had  been  consigned,  alive 
and  kicking,  to  the  tomb,  by  a  blundering  undertaker 
of  criticism.  I  read  the  review,  and  wrote  on  it.  with 
a  pencil,  "  So  thinks  one  man  in  fifteen  millions ;"  and, 
to  my  surprise,  up  swore  my  dejected  friend,  like  Mas 
ter  Barnardine,  that  he  would  "  consent  to  die  that 
day,  for  no  man's  persuasion."  Since  that  I  have 
made  a  practice  of  counting  the  enemy ;  and  trust  me, 
dear  Doctor,  it  is  sometimes  worth  while  not  to  run 
away  without  this  little  preliminary.  A  friend,  for  in 
stance,  with  a  most  boding  solemnity,  takes  you  aside, 
and  pulls  from  his  pocket  a  newspaper  containing  a 
paragraph  that  is  aimed  at  your  book,  your  morals, 
perhaps  your  looks  and  manners.  You  catch  the 
alarm  from  your  friend's  face,  and  fancy  it  is  the  voice 
of  public  opinion,  and  your  fate  is  fixed.  Your  book 
is  detestable,  your  character  is  gone.  Your  manners 
and  features  are  the  object  of  universal  disapprobation. 
Stay  !  count  ilie  enemy  !  Was  it  decided  by  a  conven 
tion  ?  No !  By  a  caucus  ?  No  !  By  a  vote  on  the 
deck  of  a  steamboat  ?  No  !  By  a  group  at  the  cor 
ner  of  the  street,  by  a  club,  by  a  dinner-party  ?  No  ! 
By  whom  then  ?  One  small  gentleman,  sitting  in  a 
dingy  corner  of  a  printing-office,  who  puts  his  quill 
through  your  reputation  as  the  entomologist  slides  a 
pin  through  a  beetle — in  the  way  of  his  vocation.  No 
particular  malice  to  you.  He  wanted  a  specimen  of 
the  genus  poet,  and  you  were  the  first  caught.  If  j 
there  is  no  head  to  the  pin  (as  there  often  is  none),  the 
best  way  is  to  do  as  the  beetle  does — pretend  to  be 
killed  till  he  forgets  you,  and  then  slip  oft'  without  a 
buzz. 

The  only  part  of  calumny  that  I  ever  found  trouble 
some  was  my  friends'  insisting  on  my  being  unhappy 
about  it.  I  dare  say  you  have  read  the  story  of  the 
German  criminal,  whose  last  request  that  his  head 
might  be  struck  off  while  he  stood  engaged  in  conver 
sation,  was  humanely  granted  by  the  provost.  The 
executioner  was  an  adroit  headsman,  and  watching  his 
opportunity,  he  crept  behind  his  victim  while  he  was 
observing  the  flight  of  a  bird,  and  sliced  oft'  his  bulb 
without  even  decomposing  his  gaze.  It  was  suggest 
ed  to  the  sufferer  presently  that  he  was  decapitated,  but 
he  thought  not.  Upon  which  one  of  his  friends  step 
ped  up,  and  begging  he  would  take  the  pains  to  stir 
himself  a  little,  his  head  fell  to  the  ground.  If  the 
story  be  not  true  the  moral  is.  In  the  many  times  I 
have  been  put  to  death  by  criticism,  I  have  never  felt 
incommoded,  till  some  kind  friend  insisted  upon  it, 
and  now  that  I  can  stand  on  a  potato-hill  in  a  circle 
of  twice  the  diameter  of  a  rifleshot,  and  warn  off  all 
trespassers,  I  intend  to  defy  sympathy,  and  carry  my 
top  as  long  as  it  will  stay  on — behead  me  as  often  as 
you  like,  beyond  my  periphery. 
Still,  though 

"  The  eagle  suffers  little  birds  to  sing, 

And  is  not  careful  what  they  mean  thereby," 

it  is  very  pleasant  now  and  then  to  pounce  upon  a  big-  j 
ger  bird  screaming  in  the  same  chorus.     Nothing  im-  | 
pairs  the  dignity  of  an  author's  reputation  like  a  news 
paper  wrangle,  yet  one   bold   literary  vulture  struck 
down  promptly  and  successfully  serves  as  good  a  pur-  ! 
pose  as  the  hawk  nailed  to  the  barn  door.     But  I  do  | 
not  live  in  the  country  to  be  pestered  with  resentments. 
o  not  well  know  how  the  thoughts  of  them  came 
under  the  bridge.     I'll  have  a  fence  that  shall  keep 


out  such  stray  cattle,  or  there  are  no  posts  and  rails  in 
philosophy. 

There  is  a  little  mental  phenomenon,  dear  Doctor, 
which  has  happened  to  me  of  late  so  frequently,  that 
I  must  ask  you  if  you  are  subject  to  it,  in  the  hope 
that  your  singular  talent  for  analysis  will  give  me  the 
"pourquoy."  I  mean  a  suddeii  noyjnty  in  the  impres 
sion  of  very  familiar  objects,  enjoyments,  etc.  For 
example,  did  it  ever  strike  you  all  at  once  that  a  tree 
was  a  very  magnificent  production?  After  looking  at 
lakes  and  rivers  for  thirty  years  (more  or  less),  have 
you  ever,  some  fine  morning,  caught  sight  of  a  very 
familiar  stream,  and  found  yourself  impressed  with  its 
new  and  singular  beauty  ?  I  do  not  know  that  the  mir 
acle  extends  to  human  faces,  at  least  in  the  same  de 
gree.  I  am  sure  that  my  old  coat  is  not  rejuvenes 
cent.  But  it  is  true  that  from  possessing  the  nil 
admirari  becoming  to  a  "picked  man  of  countries" 
(acquired  with  some  pains,  I  may  say),  I  now  catch 
myself  smiling  with  pleasure  to  think  the  river  will  not 
all  run  by,  that  there  will  be  another  sunset  to-mor 
row,  that  my  grain  will  ripen  and  nod  when  it  is  ripe, 
and  such  like  every-day  marvels.  Have  we  scales 
that  drop  off  our  eyes  at  a  "  certain  age  ?"  Do  our 
senses  renew  as  well  as  our  bodies,  only  more  ca 
priciously?  Have  we  a  chrysalis  state,  here  below, 
like  that  parvenu  gentleman,  the  butterfly  ?  Still 
more  interesting  query — does  this  delicious  novelty 
attach,  later  in  life,  or  ever,  to  objects  of  affection- 
compensating  for  the  ravages  in  the  form,  the  dulness 
of  the  senses,  loss  of  grace,  temper,  and  all  outward 
loveliness  ?  I  should  like  to  get  you  over  a  flagon  of 
tokay  on  that  subject. 

There  is  a  curious  fact,  I  have  learned  for  the  first 
time  in  this  wild  country,  and  it  may  be  new  to  you, 
that  as  the  forest  is  cleared,  new  springs  rise  to  the 
surface  of  the  ground,  as  if  at  the  touch  of  the  sun 
shine.  The  settler  knows  that  water  as  well  as  herb 
age  will  start  to  the  light,  and  as  his  axe  lets  it  in  up 
on  the  black  bosom  of  the  wilderness,  his  cattle  find 
both  pasture  and  drink,  where,  before,  there  had  never 
been  either  well-head  or  verdure.  You  have  yourself 
been,  in  your  day,  dear  Doctor,  "  a  warped  slip  of 
wilderness,"  and  will  see  at  once  that  there  lies  in  this 
ordinance  of  nature  a  beautiful  analogy  to  certain  mor-  . 
al  changes  that  come  in  upon  the  heels  of  more  cul 
tivated  and  thoughtful  manhood.  Of  the  springs  that 
start  up  in  the  footsteps  of  thought  and  culture,  the 
sources  are  like  those  of  forest  springs,  unsuspect 
ed  till  they  flow.  There  is  no  divining-rod,  whose 
dip  shall  tell  us  at  twenty  what  we  shall  most  relish  at 
thirty.  We  do  not  think  that  with  experience  we  shall 
have  grown  simple,  that  things  we  slight  and  overlook 
will  have  become  marvels,  that  our  advancement  in 
worth  will  owe  more  to  the  cutting  away  of  overgrowth 
in  tastes  than  to  their  acquisition  or  nurture. 

I  should  have  thought  this  change  in  myself  scarce 
worth  so  much  blotting  of  good  paper,  but  for  its  bear 
ing  on  a  question  that  has  hitherto  given  me  no  little 
anxiety.  The  rivers  flow  on  to  the  sea,  increasing  in 
strength  and  glory  to  the  last,  but  we  have  our  pride 
and  fulness  in  youth,  and  dwindle  and  fall  away  tow 
ard  the  grave.  How  I  was  to  grow  dull  to  the  ambi 
tions  and  excitements  which  constituted  my  whole  ex 
istence — be  content  to  lag  and  fall  behind  and  forego 
emulation  in  all  possible  pursuits — in  short,  how  I 
was  to  grow  old  contentedly  and  gracefully,  has  been 
to  me  a  somewhat  painful  puzzle.  With  what  should 
I  be  pleased  ?  How  should  I  fill  the  vacant  halls 
from  which  had  fled  merriment  and  fancy,  and  hope, 
and  desire  ? 

You  can  scarce  understand,  dear  Doctor,  with  what 
pleasure  I  find  this  new  spring  in  my  path— the  con 
tent  with  which  I  admit  the  conviction,  that  without 
effort  or  self-denial,  the  mind  may  slake  its  thirst,  and 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


17 


the  heart  be  satisfied  with  but  the  waste  of  what  lies 
so  near  us.  1  have  all  my  life  seen  men  grow  old, 
tranquilly  and  content,  but  I  did  not  think  it  possible 
that  /should.  I  took  pleasure  only  in  that  which  re 
quired  young  blood  to  follow,  and  I  felt  that  to  look 
backward  for  enjoyment,  would  be  at  best  but  a  diffi 
cult  resignation. 

Now  let  it  be  no  prejudice  to  the  sincerity  of  my 
philosophy,  if,  as  a  corollary,  I  beg  you  to  take  a  farm 
on  the  Susqueh;imi:ih,  and  let  us  grow  old  in  com 
pany.  I  should  think  Fate  kinder  than  she  passes  for, 
if  I  could  draw  you,  and  one  or  two  others  whom  we 
know  and  "  love  with  knowledge,"  to  cluster  about 
this — certainly  one  of  the  loveliest  spots  in  nature,  and, 
while  the  river  glides  by  unchangingly,  shape  our 
selves  to  our  changes  with  a  helping  sympathy. 
Think  of  it,  dear  Doctor!  Meantime  I  employ  my 
self  in  my  rides,  selecting  situations  on  the  river  banks 
which  1  think  would  be  to  yours  and  our  friends' 
liking  ;  and  in  the  autumn,  when  it  is  time  to  trans 
plant,  I  intend  to  suggest  to  the  owners  where  trees 
might  be  wanted  in  case  they  ever  sold,  so  that  you 
will  not  lose  even  a  season  in  your  shrubbery,  though 
you  delay  your  decision.  Why  should  we  not  renew 
Arcady  ?  God  bless  you. 


LETTER  X. 

You  may  congratulate  me  on  the  safe  getting  in  of 
my  harvest,  dear  Doctor ;  for  I  have  escaped,  as  you 
may  say,  in  a  parenthesis.  Two  of  the  most  destruc 
tive  hail-storms  remembered  in  this  part  of  the  country 
have  prostrated  the  crops  of  my  neighbors,  above  and 
below — leaving  not  a  blade  of  corn,  nor  an  unbroken 
window ;  yet  there  goes  my  last  load  of  grain  into  the 
barn,  well-ripened,  and  cut  standing  and  fair. 

"  Some  bright  little  cherub,  that  sits  up  aloft, 
Keeps  watch  for  the  soul  of  poor  Peter." 

I  confess  I  should  have  fretted  at  the  loss  of  my 
firstlings  more  than  for  a  much  greater  disaster  in  an 
other  shape.  I  have  expended  curiosity,  watching,  and 
fresh  interest,  upon  my  uplands,  besides  plaster  and  my 
own  labor  ;  and  the  getting  back  five  hundred  bushels 
for  five  or  ten,  has  been  to  me,  through  all  its  beauti 
ful  changes  from  April  till  now,  a  wonder  to  be  en 
joyed  like  a  play.  To  have  lost  the  denouement  by  a 
hail-storm,  would  be  like  a  play  with  the  fifth  act 
omitted,  or  a  novel  with  the  last  leaf  torn  out.  Now,  if 
no  stray  spark  set  fire  to  my  barn,  I  can  pick  you  out  the 
whitest  of  a  thousand  sheaves,  thrash  them  with  the 
first  frost,  and  send  you  a  barrel  of  Glenmary  flour, 
which  shall  be,  not  only  very  excellent  bread,  but 
should  have  also  a  flavor  of  wonder,  admiration — all 
the  feelings,  in  short,  with  which  I  have  watched  it, 
from  seed-time  to  harvest.  Yet  there  is  many  a  dull 
dog  will  eat  of  it,  and  remark  no  taste  of  me  !  And  so 
there  are  men  who  will  read  a  friend's  book  as  if  it 
were  a  stranger's — but  we  are  not  of  those.  If  we 
love  the  man,  whether  we  eat  a  potato  of  his  raising, 
or  read  a  verse  of  his  inditing,  there  is  in  it  a  sweet 
ness  which  has  descended  from  his  heart — by  quill  or 
hoe-handle.  I  scorn  impartiality.  If  it  be  a  virtue, 
Death  and  Posterity  may  monopolize  it  for  me. 

I  was  interrupted  a  moment  since  by  a  neighbor, 
who,  though  innocent  of  reading  and  writing,  has  a 
coinage  of  phraseology,  which  would  have  told  in 
authorship.  A  stray  mare  had  broken  into  his  peas, 
and  he  came  to  me  to  write  an  advertisement  for  the 
court-house  door.  After  requesting  the  owner  "  to 
pay  charges  and  take  her  away,"  in  good  round  char 
acters,  I  recommended  to  my  friend,  who  was  a  good 
9 


deal  vexed  at  the  trespass,  to  take  a  day's  work  out 
of  her. 

"  Why,  I  haint  no  job  on  the  mounting,"  said  he, 
folding  up  the  paper  very  carefully.  "  It's  a  side- 
hill  critter!  Two  off  legs  so  lame,  she  can't  stand 
even." 

It  was  certainly  a  new  idea,  that  a  horse  with  two 
spavins  on  a  side,  might  be  used  with  advantage  on  a 
hill-farm.  While  I  was  jotting  it  down  for  your  bene 
fit,  my  neighbor  had  emerged  from  under  the  bridge, 
and  was  climbing  the  railing  over  my  head. 

"What  will  you  do  if  he  won't  pay  damages?"  1 
cried  out. 

"  Put  the  types  on  to  him .'"  he  answered  :  and, 
jumping  into  the  road,  strided  away  to  post  up  his  ad 
vertisement. 

I  presume,  that  "to  put  the  types  on  to"  a  man,  is 
to  send  the  constable  to  him  with  a  printed  warrant  ; 
but  it  is  a  good  phrase. 

The  hot  weather  of  the  last  week  has  nearly  dried 
up  the  brook,  and,  forgetting  to  water  my  young  trees 
in  the  hurry  of  harvesting,  a  few  of  them  have  hung 
out  the  quarantine  yellow  at  the  top,  and,  I  fear,  will 
scarce  stand  it  till  autumn.  Not  to  have  all  my  hopes 
in  one  venture,  and  that  a  frail  one,  I  have  set  about 
converting  a  magnificent  piece  of  wild  jungle  into  an 
academical  grove — an  occupation  that  makes  one  feel 
more  like  a  viceroy  than  a  farmer.  Let  me  interest 
you  in  this  metempsychosis;  for,  if  we  are  to  grow 
old  together,  as  I  proposed  to  you  in  my  last,  this 
grove  will  lend  its  shade  to  many  a  slippered  noontide, 
and  echo,  we  will  hope,  the  philosophy  of  an  old  age, 
wise  and  cheerful.  Aptly  for  my  design,  the  shape  of 
the  grove  is  that  of  the  Greek  SI — the  river  very  nearly 
encircling  it ;  and  here,  if  I  live,  will  I  pass  the  Omega 
of  my  life ;  and,  if  you  will  come  to  the  christening, 
dear  Doctor,  so  shall  the  grove  be  named,  in  solemn 
ceremony — The  Omega, 

How  this  nobly-wooded  and  water-clasped  little  pen 
insula  has  been  suffered  to  run  to  waste,  I  know  not. 
It  contains  some  half-score  acres  of  rich  interval ;  and, 
to  the  neglect  of  previous  occupants  of  the  farm,  I  prob 
ably  owe  its  gigantic  trees,  as  well  as  its  weedy  under 
growth,  and  tangled  vines.  Time  out  of  mind  (five 
years,  in  this  country)  it  has  been  a  harbor  for  wood 
cocks,  wood-ducks,  minks,  wild  bees,  humming  birds, 
and  cranes — (two  of  the  latter  still  keeping  possession) 
— and  its  labyrinth  of  tall  weeds,  interlaced  with  the 
low  branches  of  the  trees,  was  seldom  penetrated,  ex 
cept  once  or  twice  a  year  by  the  sportsman,  and  as 
often  by  the  Owaga  in  its  freshet.  Scarce  suspecting 
the  size  of  the  trees  within,  whose  trunks  were  entirely 
concealed,  I  have  looked  upon  its  towering  mass  of 
verdure  but  as  a  superb  emerald  wall,  shutting  the 
meadows  in  on  the  east — and,  though  within  a  lance- 
shot  of  my  cottage,  have  neglected  it,  like  my  prede 
cessors,  for  more  manageable  ground. 

I  have  enjoyed  very  much  the  planting  of  young 
wood,  and  the  anticipation  of  its  shade  and  splendor  in 
Heaven's  slow,  but  good  time.  It  was  a  pleasure  of 
Hope;  and,  to  men  of  leisure  and  sylvan  taste  in  Eng 
land,  it  has  been — literature  bears  witness — a  pursuit 
full  of  dignity  and  happiness.  But  the  redemption  of 
a  venerable  grove  from  the  wilderness,  is  an  enjoyment 
of  another  measure.  It  is  a  kind  of  playing  of  King 
Lear  backward— discovering  the  old  monarch  in  his 
abandonment,  and  sweeping  off  his  unnatural  offspring, 
to  bring  back  the  sunshine  to  his  old  age,  and  give  him 
room,  with  his  knights,  in  his  own  domain.  You 
know  how  trees  that  grow  wild  near  water,  in  this 
country,  put  out  foliage  upon  the  trunk  as  well  as  the 
'  branches,  covering  it,  like  ivy,  to  the  roots.  It  is  a 
beautiful  caprice  of  Nature ;  but  the  grandeur  of  the 
dark  and  massive  stem  is  entirely  lost — and  I  have 
been  as  much  surprised  at  the  giant  bodies  we  have 
I  developed,  stripping  off  this  unfitting  drapery,  as 


18 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


Richard  at  the  thewes  and  sinews  of  the  uncovvled 
friar  of  Copmanhurst. 

You  can  not  fancy,  if  you  have  never  exercised  this 
grave  authority,  how  many  difficulties  of  judgment 
arise,  and  how  often  a  jury  is  wanted  to  share  the  re 
sponsibility  of  the  irretrievable  axe.  I  am  slow  to 
condemn ;  and  the  death-blow  to  a  living  tree,  how 
ever  necessary,  makes  my  blood  start,  and  my  judg 
ment  half  repent.  There  are,  to-day,  several  under 
reprieve — one  of  them  a  beautiful  linden,  which  I  can 
see  from  my  seat  under  the  bridge,  nodding  just  now 
to  the  wind,  as  careless  of  its  doom  as  if  it  were  sure 
its  bright  foliage  would  flaunt  out  the  summer.  In 
itself  it  is  well  worth  the  sparing  and  cherishing,  for  it 
is  full  of  life  and  youth — and,  could  I  transplant  it  to  j 
another  spot,  it  would  be  invaluable.  But,  though 
full  grown  and  spreading,  it  stands  among  giants, 
whose  branches  meet  above  it  at  twice  its  height ;  and,  j 
while  it  contributes  nothing  to  the  shade,  its  smaller 
trunk  looks  a  Lilliputian  in  Brobdignag,  out  of  keep 
ing  and  proportion.  So  I  think  it  must  come  down — 
and,  with  it,  a  dozen  in  the  same  category — condemned,  , 
like  many  a  wight  who  was  well  enough  in  his  place,  j 
for  being  found  in  too  good  company. 

There  is  a  superstition  about  the  linden,  by  the 
way,  to  which  the  peculiarity  in  its  foliage  may  easily 
have  given  rise.  You  may  have  remarked,  of  course, 
that  from  the  centre  of  the  leaf  starts  a  slender  stem, 
which  bears  the  linden-flower.  Our  Savior  is  said, 
by  those  who  believe  in  the  superstition,  to  have  been 
crucified  upon  this  tree,  which  has  ever  since  borne 
the  flowering  type  of  the  nails  driven  into  it  through  j 
his  palms. 

Another,   whose  doom  is  suspended,  is  a  ragged  ! 
sycamore,  whose  decayed  branches  are  festooned  to 
the  highest  top  by  a  wild  grape-vine,  of  the  most  su 
perb  fruitfulness  and  luxuriance.     No  wife  ever  pleaded  j 
for  a  condemned  husband  with  more  eloquence  than  j 
these  delicate  tendrils  to  me,  for  the  rude  tree  with 
whose  destiny  they  are  united.     I  wish  you  were  here,  I 
dear  Doctor,  to  say  spare  it,  or  cut  it  down.     In  itself,  j 
like  the  linden,  it  is  a  splendid  creature ;  but,  alas !  it  i 
spoils  a  long  avenue  of  stately  trees  opening  toward  my  ! 
cottage  porch,  and  I  fear  policy  must  outweigh  pity. 
I  shall  let  it  stand  over  Sunday,  and  fortify  myself 
with  an  opinion. 

Did  you  ever  try  your  hand,  dear  Doctor,  at  this 
forest-sculpture?  It  sounds  easy  enough  to  trim  out; 
a  wood,  and  so  it  is,  if  the  object  be  merely  to  produce  I 
butter-nuts,  or  shade-grazing  cattle.  But  to  thin,  and  I 
trim,  and  cut  down,  judiciously,  changing  a  "wild  and  j 
warped  slip  of  wilderness"  into  a  chaste  and  studious  I 
grove,  is  not  done  without  much  study  of  the  spot,  let  • 
alone  a  taste  for  the  sylvan.  There  are  all  the  many 
effects  of  the  day's  light  to  be  observed,  how  morning 
throws  her  shadows,  and  what  protection  there  is  from 
noon,  and  where  is  flung  open  an  aisle  to  let  in  the 
welcome  radiance  of  sunset.  There  is  a  view  of 
water  to  be  let  through,  perhaps,  at  the  expense  of 
trees  otherwise  ornamental,  or  an  object  to  hide  by 
shrubbery  which  is  in  the  way  of  an  avenue.  I  have 
lived  here  as  long  as  this  year's  grasshoppers,  and  am 
constantly  finding  out  something  which  should  have  a 
bearing  on  the  disposition  of  grounds  or  the  sculpture 
(permit  me  the  word)  of  my  wood  and  forest.  I  am 
sorry  to  finish  "  the  Omega"  without  your  counsel 
and  taste  ;  but  there  is  a  wood  on  the  hill  which  I  will 
keep,  like  a  cold  pie,  till  you  come  to  us,  and  we  will 
shoulder  our  axes  and  carve  it  into  likelihood  together. 

And  now  here  comes  my  Yankee  axe  (not  curtal) 
which  I  sent  to  be  ground  when  I  sat  down  to  scrawl 
you  this  epistle.  As  you  owe  the  letter  purely  to  its 
dulness  (and  mine),  I  must  away  to  a  half-felled  tree, 
which  I  deserted  in  its  extremity.  If  there  were  truth 
in  Ovid,  what  a  butcher  I  were !  Yet  there  is  a  groan 
when  a  tree  falls,  which  sometimes  seems  to  me  more 


than  the  sundering  of  splinters.     Adieu,  dear  Doctor, 
and  believe  that 

"  Whate'er  the  ocean  pales  or  sky  inclips 
Is  thine," 

if  I  can  give  it  you  by  wishing. 


LETTER  XI. 

THE  box  of  Rhenish  is  no  substitute  for  yourself, 
dear  Doctor,  but  it  was  most  welcome — partly,  per 
haps,  for  the  qualities  it  has  in  common  with  the  gen 
tleman  who  should  have  come  in  the  place  of  it.  The 
one  bottle  that  has  fulfilled  its  destiny,  was  worthy  to 
have  been  sunned  on  the  Rhine  and  drank  on  the  Sus- 
quehannah,  and  I  will  never  believe  that  anything  can 
come  from  you  that  will  not  improve  upon  acquaint 
ance.  So  I  shall  treasure  the  remainder  for  bright 
hours.  I  should  have  thought  it  superior  even  to  the 
Tokay  I  tasted  at  Vienna,  if  other  experiments  had  not 
apprized  me  that  country  life  sharpens  the  universal 
relish.  I  think  that  even  the  delicacy  of  the  palate  is 
affected  by  the  confused  sensations,  the  turmoil,  the 
vexations  of  life  in  town.  You  will  say  you  have  your 
quiet  chambers,  where  you  are  as  little  disturbed  by 
the  people  around  you  as  I  by  my  grazing  herds.  But, 
by  your  leave,  dear  Doctor,  the  fountains  of  thought 
(upon  which  the  senses  are  not  a  little  dependant)  will 
not  clear  and  settle  over-night  like  a  well.  No — nor 
in  a  day,  nor  in  two.  You  must  live  in  the  country 
to  possess  your  bodily  sensations  as  well  as  your  mind, 
in  tranquil  control.  It  is  only  when  you  have  forgot 
ten  streets  and  rumors  and  greetings — forgotten  the 
whip  of  punctuality,  and  the  hours  of  forced  pleasures 
— only  when  you  have  cleansed  your  ears  of  the  din 
of  trades,  the  shuffle  of  feet,  the  racket  of  wheels,  and 
coarse  voices — only  when  your  own  voice,  accustomed 
to  contend  against  discords,  falls,  through  the  fragrant 
air  of  the  country,  into  its  natural  modulations,  in  har 
mony  with  the  low  key  upon  which  runs  all  the  music 
of  nature — only  when  that  part  of  the  world  which  par 
took  not  of  the  fall  of  Adam,  has  had  time  to  affect 
you  with  its  tranquillity — only  then  that  the  dregs  of 
life  sink  out  of  sight,  and  while  the  soul  sees  through 
its  depths,  like  the  sun  through  untroubled  water,  the 
senses  lose  their  fever  and  false  energy,  and  play  their 
part,  and  no  more,  in  the  day's  expenditure  of  time 
and  pulsation. 

"  Still  harping  on  my  daughter,"  you  will  say  ;  and 
I  will  allow  that  I  can  scarce  write  a  letter  to  you  with 
out  shaping  it  to  the  end  of  attracting  you  to  the  Sus- 
qnehannah.  At  least  watch  when  you  begin  to  grow 
old,  and  transplant  yourself  in  time  to  take  root,  and 
then  we  may  do  as  the  trees  do — defy  the  weather  till 
we  are  separated.  The  oak,  itself,  if  it  has  grown  up 
with  its  kindred  thick  about  it,  will  break  if  left  stand 
ing  alone:  and  you  and  I,  dear  Doctor,  have  known  the 
luxury  of  friends  too  well  to  bear  the  loneliness  of  an 
unsyrnpathizing  old  age.  Friends  are  not  pebbles, 
lying  in  every  path,  but  pearls  gathered  with  pain,  and 
rare  as  they  are  precious.  We  spend  our  youth  and 
manhood  in  the  search  and  proof  of  them,  and  when 
Death  has  taken  his  toll  we  have  too  few  to  scatter — 
none  to  throw  away.  I,  for  one,  will  be  a  miser  of  mine. 
I  feel  the  avarice  of  friendship  growing  on  me  with 
every  year — tightening  my  hold  and  extending  my 
grasp.  Who  at  sixty  is  rich  in  friends  ?  The  richest 
are  those  who  have  drawn  this  wealth  of  angels  around 
them,  and  spent  care  and  thought  on  the  treasuring. 
Come,  my  dear  Doctor  !  I  have  chosen  a  spot  on 
one  of  the  loveliest  of  our  bright  rivers.  Here  is  all 
that  goes  to  make  an  Arcadia,  except  the  friendly 
dwellers  in  its  shade.  I  will  choose  your  hill-side, 
and  plant  your  grove,  that  the  trees  at  least  shall  lose 
no  time  by  your  delay.  Set  a  limit  to  your  ambition, 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


19 


achieve  it,  and  como  away.  It  is  terrible  to  grow  old 
amid  the  jostle  and  'disrespectful  hurry  of  a  crowd. 
The  academy  of  the  philosophers  was  out  of  Athens. 
You  can  not  fancy  Socrates  run  against,  in  the  mar 
ket-place.  Respect,  which  grows  wild  in  the  fields, 
requires  watching  and  management  in  cities.  Let  us 
have  an  old  man's  Arcady — where  we  can  slide  our 
"slippered  shoon"  through  groves  of  our  own  con 
secrating,  ami  talk  of  the  world  as  without — ourselves 
and  gay  philosophy  within.  1  have  strings  pulling 
upon  one  or  two  in  other  lands,  who,  like  our 
selves,  are  not  men  to  let  Content  walk  unrecognised 
in  their  path.  Slowly,  but,  I  think,  surely,  they  are 
drawing  thitherward  ;  and  I  have  chosen  places  for 
their  hearthstones,  too,  and  shall  watch,  as  [  do  for 
you,  that  the  woodman's  axe  cuts  down  no  tree  that 
would  be  regretted,  If  the  cords  draw  well,  and 
Death  take  but  his  tithe,  my  shady  "Omega"  will 
soon  learn  voices  to  which  its  echo  will  for  long  years 
be  familiar,  and  the  Owaga  and  Susquehannah  will; 
join  waters  within  sight  of  an  old  man's  Utopia. 

"  My  sentiments  better  expressed"  have  come  in  j 
the  poet's  corner  of  the  Albion  to-day — a  paper,  by  | 
the  way,  remarkable  for  its  good  selection  of  poetry. ! 
You  w"ill  allow  that  these  two  verses,  which  are  the 
Hosing  ones  of  a  piece  called  "The  men  of  old,"  are 
above  the  common  run  of  newspaper/Motives : — 

"  A  man's  best  things  are  nearest  him, 

Lie  close  about  his  feet ; 
It  is  the  distant  and  the  dim 

That  we  are  sick  to  greet : 
For  flowers  that  grow  our  hands  beneath 

We  struggle  and  aspire, 
Our  hearts  must  die  except  we  breathe 

The  air  of  fresh  desire. 
"  But,  brothers,  who  up  reason's  hill 

Advance  with  hopeful  cheer, 
O  loiter  not !  those  heights  are  chill, 

As  chill  as  they  arc  clear. 
And  still  restrain  your  haughty  gaze — 

The  loftier  that  ye  go, 
Remembering  distance  leaves  a  haze 

On  all  that  lies  below." 

The  man  who  wrote  that,  is  hereby  presented  with  the 
freedom  of  the  Omega. 

The  first  of  September,  and  a  frost !  The  farmers 
from  the  hills  are  mourning  over  their  buckwheat, 
but  the  river-mist  saves  all  which  lay  low  enough  for 
its  whito  wreath  to  cover ;  and  mine,  though  sown  on 
the  hill-side,  is  at  mist-mark,  and  so  escaped.  Nature 
seems  to  intend  that  I  shall  take  kindly  to  farming,  and 
has  spared  my  first  crop  even  the  usual  calamities.  I 
have  lost  but  an  acre  of  com,  I  think,  and  that  by  the 
crows,  who  are  privileged  marauders,  welcome  at 
least  to  build  in  the  Omega,  and  take  their  tithe  with 
out  rent-day  or  molestation.  I  like  their  noise,  though 
discordant.  It  is  the  minor  in  the  anthem  of  nature — 
making  the  gay  song  of  the  blackbird,  and  the  merry 
chirp  of  the  robin  and  oriel,  more  gay  and  cheerier. 
Then  there  is  a  sentiment  about  the  raven  family,  and 
for  Shakspere's  lines  and  his  dear  sake,  I  love  them, 

"  Some  say  the  ravens  foster  forlorn  children 
The  while  their  own  birds  famish  in  their  nests." 

The  very  name  of  a  good  deed  shall  protect  them. 
Who  shall  say  that  poetry  is  a  vain  art,  or  that 
poets  are  irresponsible  for  the  moral  of  their  verse ! 
For  Burns's  sake,  not  ten  days  since,  I  beat  off  my  dog 
from  the  nest  of  a  field-mouse,  and  forbade  the  mow 
ers  to  cut  the  grass  over  her.  She  has  had  a  poet  for 
her  friend,  and  her  thatched  roof  is  sacred.  I  should 
not  like  to  hang  about  the  neck  of  my  soul  all  the  evil 
that,  by  the  last  day,  shall  have  had  its  seed  in  Byron's 
poem  of  the  Corsair.  It  is  truer  of  poetry  than  of 
most  other  matters,  that 

"  More  water  glideth  by  the  mill 
Than  wots  the  miller  of." 

But  I  am  slipping  into  a  sermon. 


Speaking  of  music,  some  one  said  here  the  other 
day,  that  the  mingled  hum  of  the  sounds  of  nature, 
and  the  distant  murmur  of  a  city,  produce,  invariably, 
the  note  F  in  music.  The  voices  of  all  tune,  the 
blacksmith's  anvil  and  the  wandering  organ,  the  church 
bells  and  the  dustman's,  the  choir  and  the  cart-wheel, 
the  widow's  cry,  and  the  bride's  laugh,  the  prisoner's 
clanking  chain  and  the  schoolboy's  noise  at  play — at 
the  height  of  the  church  steeple  are  one  !  It  is  all 
"  K"'  two  hundred  feet  iu  air!  The  swallow  can  out- 
soar  both  our  joys  and  miseries,  and  the  lark — what 
are  they  in  his  chamber  of  the  sun !  If  you  have  any 
iinhappiness  at  the  moment  of  receiving  this  letter, 
dear  Doctor,  try  this  bit  of  philosophy.  It's  all  F 
where  the  bird  flies !  You  have  no  wings  to  get  there, 
you  say,  but  your  mind  has  more  than  the  six  of  the 
cherubim,  and  in  your  mind  lies  the  grief  you  would 
be  rid  of.  As  Ca,-sar  says, 

"  By  all  the  gods  the  Romans  bow  before, 
I  here  discard  my  sickness." 

I'll  be  above  F,  and  let  troubles  hang  below.  What 
a  twopenny  matter  it  makes  of  all  our  cares  aud  vexa 
tions.  I'll  find  a  boy  to  climb  to  the  top  of  a  tall  pine 
I  have,  aud  tie  me  up  a  white  flag,  which  shall  be 
above  high-sorrow  mark  henceforth.  I  will  neither  be 
elated  or  grieved  without  looking  at  it.  It  floats  at 
F,"  where  it  is  all  one  !  Why,  it  will  be  a  castle  in 
the  air,  indeed — impregnable  to  unrest.  Why  not, 
dear  Doctor !  Why  should  we  not  set  up  a  reminder, 
that  our  sorrows  are  only  so  deep — that  the  lees  are 
but  at  the  bottom,  and  there  is  good  wine  at  the  top— 
that  there  is  an  atmosphere  but  a  little  above  us  where 
our  sorrows  melt  into  our  joys!  No  man  need  be  un 
happy  who  can  see  a  grasshopper  on  a  church  vane. 

It  is  surprising  how  mere  a  matter  of  animal  spirits 
is  the  generation  of  many  of  our  bluest  devils  ;  and  it 
is  more  surprising  that  we  have  neither  the  memory  to 
recall  the  trifles  that  have  put  them  to  the  flight,  nor 
the  resolution  to  combat  their  approach.  A  man 
will  be  ready  to  hang  himself  in  the  morning  for  an 
annoyance  that  he  has  the  best  reason  to  know  would 
scarce  give  him  a  thought  at  night.  Even  a  dinner  is  a 
doughty  devil-queller.  How  true  is  the  apology  of 
Menenius  when  Coriolanus  had  repelled  his  friend ! 

"  He  had  not  dined. 

The  veins  unfilled,  our  blood  is  cold,  and  then 
We  pout  upon  the  morning :  are  unapt 
To  give  or  to  forgive  ;  but  when  we  nave  stufTd 
These  pipes,  and  these  conveyances  of  our  blood, 
With  wine  and  feeding,  we  have  suppler  souls 
Than  in  our  priest-like  fasts.     Therefore  I'll  watch  him 
Till  he  be  dieted  to  my  request.". 

I  have  recovered  my  spirits  ere  now  by  a  friend  ask 
ing  me  what  was  the  matter.  One  seems  to  want  but 
the  suggestion,  the  presence  of  mind,  the  expressed 
wish,  to  be  happy  any  day.  My  white  flag  shall  serve 
me  that  good  end!  "Tut,  man!"  it  shall  say,  "your 
grief  is  not  grief  where  I  am !  Send  your  imagination 
this  high  to  be  whitewashed !" 

Our  weather  to-day  is  a  leaf  out  of  October's  book, 
soft,  yet  invigorating.  The  harvest  moon  seems  to 
have  forgotten  her  mantle  last  night,  for  there  lies  on 
the  landscape  a  haze,  that  to  be  so  delicate,  should  be 
born  of  moonlight.  The  boys  report  plenty  of  deer- 
tracks  in  the  woods  close  by  us,  and  the  neighbors  tell 
me  they  browse  in  troops  on  my  buckwheat  by  the 
light  of  the  moon,  Let  them !  I  have  neither  trap 
nor  gun  on  my  premises,  and  Shakspere  shall  be  their 
sentinel  too.  At  least,  no  Robin  or  Diggory  shall 
shoot  them  without  complaint  of  damage ;  though  if 
you  were  here,  dear  Doctor,  I  should  most  likely  bor 
row  a  gun,  and  lie  down  with  you  in  the  buckwheat  to 
see  you  bring  down  the  fattest.  And  so  do  our  par 
tialities  modify  our  benevolence.  I  fear  I  should  com 
pound  for  a  visit  by  the  slaughter  of  the  whole  herd. 
Perhaps  you  will  come  to  shoot  deer,  aod  with  that 
pleasant  hope  I  will  close  my  letter. 


20 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


LETTER  XII. 

I  HAVE  nearly  had  by  breath  taken  away  this  morn 
ing,  dear  Doctor,  by  a  grave  assurance  from  a  rail 
road  commissioner,  that  five  years  hence  I  shoul 
"devour  the  way"  between  this  and  New  York  i 
seven  hours.  Close  on  the  heels  of  this  gentlema 
came  an  engineer  of  the  canal,  who  promised  me  a 
trippingly,  that  in  three  years  I  should  run  in  a  packet 
boat  from  my  cottage  to  tide-water.  This  was  in 
tended,  in  both  cases,  I  presume,  to  be  very  pleasan 
intelligence.  With  a  little  time,  I  dare  say,  I  shal 
come  to  think  it  so.  But  I  assure  you  at  present 
that,  of  all  dwellers  upon  the  canal  route,  myself,  am 
the  toads  disentombed  by  the  blasting  of  the  rocks,  are 
perhaps,  the  most  unpleasantly  surprised — they,  poo 
hermits,  fancying  themselves  safe  from  the  troubles  ol 
existence  till  dooms-day,  and  I  as  sure  that  my  cot 
tage  was  at  a  safe  remove  from  the  turmoil  of  citi 
propinquity. 

If  I  am  compelled  to  choose  a  hearthstone  again 
(God  knows  whether  Broadway  will  not  reach  bodilj 
to  this),  I  will  employ  an  engineer  to  find  me  a  spot 
if  indeed  there  be  one,  which  has  nothing  behind  it  o 
about  it,  or  in  its  range,  which  could  by  any  chanci 
make  it  a  thoroughfare.  There  is  a  charm  to  me  ir 
an  zn-navigable  river,  which  brought  me  to  the  Sus 
quehannah.  I  like  the  city  sometimes,  and  I  bles 
Heaven  for  steamboats  ;  but  I  love  haunts  where  . 
neither  see  a  steamboat  nor  expect  the  city.  What  is 
the  Hudson  but  a  great  highroad  ?  You  may  have 
your  cottage,  it  is  true,  and  live  by  the  water-side  in 
the  shade,  and  be  a  hundred  miles,  more  or  less,  from 
the  city.  But  every  half  hour  comes  twanging  through 
your  trees,  the  clang  of  an  untuneable  bell  informing 
you,  whether  you  will  or  no,  that  seven  hundred  cits 
are  seething  past  your  solitude.  You  must  be  an  ab 
stracted  student  indeed  if  you  do  not  look  after  the 
noisy  intruder  till  she  is  lost  to  the  eye.  Then  follow 
conjectures  what  news  may  be  on  board,  what  friends 
may  be  passing  unknown,  what  celebrities  or  oddities, 
or  wonders  of  beauty,  may  be  mingling  in  the  throng 
upon  her  decks ;  and  by  the  time  you  remember  again 
that  you  are  in  the  country,  there  sounds  another  bell, 
and  another  discordant  whiz,  and  so  your  mind  is 
plucked  away  to  city  thoughts  and  associations,  while 
your  body  sits  alone  and  discontented  amid  the  trees. 
Now,  for  one,  I  like  not  this  divorce.  If  I  am  to  be 
happy,  my  imagination  must  keep  my  body  company 
and  both  must  be  in  the  country,  or  both  in  town 
With  all  honor  to  Milton,  who  avers — 

"  The  mind  is  its  own  place,  and  in  itself 
Can  make  a  hell  of  heaven,  a  heaven  of  hell,'' 

my  mind  to  make  a  heaven,  requires  the  society  of  its 
material  half.  Though  my  pores  take  in  a  palpable 
pleasure  from  the  soft  air  of  morning,  my  imagination 
feeds  twice  as  bountifully,  foraging  amid  the  sunshine 
and  verdure  with  my  two  proper  eyes  ;  and  in  turn  my 
fancy  feeds  more  steadily  when  I  breathe  and  feel  what 
she  is  abroad  in.  Ask  the  traveller  which  were  his 
unhappiest  hours  under  foreign  skies.  If  he  is  of  my 
mind,  he  will  say,  they  were  those  in  which  his 
thoughts  (by  letters  or  chance  news)  were  driven  irre 
sistibly  home,  leaving  his  eyes  blind  and  his  ears  deaf 
in  the  desert  or  the  strange  city.  There  are  persons, 
I  know,  who  make  a  pleasure  of  revery,  and,  walking 
on  the  pavement,  will  be  dreaming  of  fields,  and  in  the 
fields  think  only  of  the  distractions  of  town.  But 
with  me,  absent  thoughts,  unless  to  be  rid  of  disagree 
able  circumstances,  are  a  disease.  When  in  health,  I 
am  all  together,  what  there  is  of  me — soul  and  body, 
head  and  heart — and  a  steamboat  that  should  daily  cut 
the  line  of  my  horizon  with  human  interest  enough  on 
board  to  take  my  thoughts  with  her  when  she  disap 
peared,  would,  to  my  thinking,  be  a  daily  calamity.  I 


thank  God  that  the  deep  shades  of  the  Omega  lie  be 
tween  my  cottage  and  the  track  of  both  canal  and  rail 
road.  I  live  in  the  lap  of  a  semicircle  of  hills,  and  the 
diameter,  I  am  pleased  to  know,  is  shorter  than  the 
curve.  There  is  a  green  and  wholesome  half  mile, 
thickly  wooded,  and  mine  own  to  keep  so,  between  my 
threshold  and  the  surveyor's  line,  and  like  the  laird's 
Jock,  I  shall  be  "  aye  sticking  in  a  tree." 

Do  not  think,  dear  Doctor,  that  I  am  insensible  to 
the  grandeur  of  the  great  project  to  connect  Lake  Erie 
with  the  Hudson  by  railroad,  or  that  I  do  not  feel  a 
becoming  interest  in  my  country's  prosperity.  I  would 
fain  have  a  farm  where  my  cattle  and  I  can  ruminate 
without  fear  of  falling  asleep  on  a  rail-track,  or  slip 
ping  into  a  canal ;  but  there  is  an  imaginative  and  a 
bright  side  to  these  improvements,  which  I  look  on  as 
often  as  on  the  other.  What  should  prevent  steam- 
posting,  for  example — not  in  confined  and  cramped 
carriages,  suited  to  the  strength  of  a  pair  of  horses,  but 
in  airy  and  commodious  apartments,  furnished  like  a 
bachelor's  lodgings,  with  bed,  kitchen,  and  servants  ? 
What  should  prevent  the  transfer  of  such  a  structure 
from  railroad  to  canal-boat  as  occasion  required  ?  In 
five  years  probably,  there  will  pass  through  this  village 
a  railroad  and  a  canal,  by  which,  together,  we  shall 
have  an  unbroken  chain  of  canal  and  railroad  commu 
nication  with  most  of  the  principal  seaboard  cities  of 
this  country,  and  with  half  the  towns  and  objects  of 
curiosity  in  the  west  and  north. 

I  build  a  tenement  on  wheels,  considerably  longer 
than  the  accommodations  of  single  gentlemen  at  ho 
tels,  with  a  small  kitchen,  and  such  a  cook  as  pleases 
the  genius  of  republics.  The  vehicle  shall  be  fur 
nished,  we  will  say,  with  tangent  moveable  rails,  or 
some  other  convenience  for  wheeling  off  the  track 
whenever  there  is  occasion  to  stop  or  loiter.  As  I 
said  before,  it  should  be  arranged  also  for  transfer  to  a 
boat.  In  either  case  there  shall  be  post-horses,  as 
upon  the  English  roads,  ready  to  be  put  to  at  a  mo 
ment's  warning,  and  capable,  upon  the  railroad  at 
least,  of  a  sufficient  rate  of  speed.  What  could  be 
more  delightful  or  more  easy  than  to  furnish  this  am 
bulatory  cottage  with  light  furniture  from  your  sta 
tionary  home,  cram  it  with  books,  and  such  little  re 
finements  as  you  most  miss  abroad,  and,  purchasing 
provisions  by  the  way,  travel  under  your  awn  roof  from 
one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other  ?  Imagine  me 
sending  you  word,  some  fine  morning,  from  Jersey 
city,  to  come  over  and  breakfast  with  me  at  my  cot 
tage,  just  arrived  by  railroad  from  the  country  ?  Or 
going  to  the  Springs  with  a  house  ready  furnished  ? 
Or  inviting  you  to  accept  of  my  hospitality  during  a 
trip  to  Baltimore,  or  Cincinnati,  or  Montreal !  The 
English  have  anticipated  this  luxury  in  their  expensive 
private  yachts,  with  which  they  traverse  the  Levant, 
and  drink  wine  from  their  own  cellars  at  Joppa  and 
Trebizond ;  but  what  is  that  to  travelling  the  same 
distance  on  land,  without  storms  or  sea-sickness,  with 
the  choice  of  companions  every  hour,  and  at  a  hun 
dredth  part  of  the  cost?  The  snail  has  been  before 
us  in  the  invention. 

I  presume,  dear  Doctor,  that  even  you  would  be 
obliged  to  fish  around  considerably  to  find  Owego  on 
he  map ;  yet  the  people  here  expect  in  a  year  or 
wo  to  sit  at  their  windows,  and  see  all  the  fashion 
and  curiosity,  as  well  as  the  dignity  and  business  of 
he  world  go  by.  This  little  village,  to  which  pros 
perity 

"  Is  as  the  osprey  to  the  fish,  who  takes  it 
By  sovereignty  of  nature," 

ies  at  the  joint  of  a  great  cross  of  northern  and  west 
ern  travel.  The  Erie  railroad  will  intersect  here  the 
canal  which  follows  the  Susquehannah  to  the  Che- 
lango,  and  you  may  as  well  come  to  Glenmary  if  you 
vish  to  see  your  friend,  the  General,  on  his  annual 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


21 


trip  to  the  Springs.  Think  what  a  superb  route  it 
will  be  for  southern  travellers.  Instead  of  being  fil 
tered  through  all  the  seaboard  cities,  at  great  cost 
of  money  and  temper,  they  will  strike  the  Susquehan- 
nah  at  Columbia,  and  follow  its  delicious  windings  past 
Wyoming  to  Owega,  where,  turning  west,  they  may 
steam  up  the  smalf  lakes  to  Niagara,  or  keeping  on  the 
Chenango,  track  that  exquisite  river  by  canal  to  the 
Mohawk,  and  so  on  to  the  Springs— all  the  way  by  the 
most  lovely  river-courses  in  the  world.  Pure  air, 
new  scenery,  and  a  near  and  complete  escape  from  the 
cities  in  the  hot  months,  will  be  (the  O-egoists  think) 
inducements  enough  to  bring  the  southern  cities,  rank 
and  file  in  annual  review  before  us.  The  canal-boat, 
of  course  will  be  "  the  genteel  thing"  among  the  arri 
vals  in  this  metropolis.  Pleasure  north  and  south, 
business  east  and  west.  We  shall  take  our  fashions 
from  New  Orleans,  and  I  do  not  despair  of  seeing  a 
cafe  on  the  Susquehannah,  with  a  French  dame  de 
comptoir,  marble  tables,  and  the  Picayune  newspaper. 
If  my  project  of  travelling  cottages  should  succeed,  i 
shall  offer  the  skirt  of  my  Omega  to  such  of  my  New 
Orleans  friends  as  would  like  to  pasture  a  cow  during 
the  summer,  and  when  they  and  the  orioles  migrate  m 
the  autumn,  why,  we  will  up  cottage  and  be  off  to  the 
south  too — freeze  who  likes  in  Tioga. 

1  wish  my  young  trees  liked  this  air  of  Italy  as  well 
as  I.  This  ten  days'  sunshine  has  pinched  their  thirsty 
tops,  and  it  looks  like  mid-autumn  from  my  seat  under 
the  bridge.  No  water,  save  a  tricklet  in  the  early  morn 
ing.  But  such  weather  for  pick-nick-ing  !  The  buck 
wheat  is  sun-dried,  and  will  yield  but  half  a  crop.  The 
deer  come  down  to  the  spring-heads,  and  the  snakes 
creep  to  the  river.  Jenny  toils  at  the  deep-down  well- 
bucket,  and  the  minister  prays  for  rain.  I  love  the  sun, 
and  pray  for  no  advent  but  yours. 

You  have  never  seen,  I  dare  be  certain,  a  vol  me 
of  poems  called  "  Mundi  et  Cordis  Carmina,"  by 
Thomas  Wade.  It  is  one  of  those  volumes  killed, 
like  my  trees,  in  the  general  drought  of  poesy,  but 
there  is  stuff  in  it  worth  the  fair  type  on  which  it  is 
printed,  though  Mr.  Wade  takes  small  pains  to  shape 
his  verse  to  the  common  comprehension.  I  mention 
him  now,  because,  in  looking  over  his  volume,  I  find 
he  has  been  before  me  in  particularizing  the  place 
where  a  letter  is  written,  and  goes  beyond  me,  by 
specifying  also  the  place  where  it  should  be  read. 
"  The  Pencilled  Letter"  and  its  "Answer"  are  among 
his  most  intelligible  poems,  and  I  will  give  you  their 
concluding  lines  as  containing  a  new  idea  in  amatory 
correspondence : — 

"  Dearest,  love  me  still ; 
I  know  new  objects  must  thy  spirit  fill ; 
But  vet  I  pray  thee,  do  not  love  me  less  ; 
This  write  I  where  I  dress.     Bless  thee  !  for  ever  bless  !" 

The  reply  has  a  very  pretty  conclusion,  aside  from  the 

final  oddity : — 

"  Others  may  inherit 

My  heart's  wild  perfume  ;  but  the  flower  is  thine. 
This  read  where  thou  didst  write.    All  blessings  round  thee 
throng." 


will  cover  them  with  one  of  Mr.  Wade's  sonnets, 
which  will  serve  you,  should  you  have  occasion  for  an 
cpithalamium.  It  is  called  "the  Bride,"  and  should 
be  read  failing  by  a  bachelor: — 

"  Let  the  trim  tapers  burn  exceeding  brightly  ! 
And  the  white  bed  be  deok'd  as  for  a  goddess, 
Who  must  be  pillow'd,  liko  high  vesper,  nightly 
On  couch  ethereal !     J3e  the  curtains  fleecy, 
Like  vesper's  fairest,  when  calm  nights  are  breezy — 
Transparent,  parting— showing  what  they  hide, 
Or  strive  to  veil— by  mystery  deified  ! 
The  floor,  gold  carpet,  that  her  zone  and  boddice 
May  lie  in  honor  where  they  gently  fall, 
Slow  loosened  from  her  form  symmetrical — 
Like  mist  from  sunlight.     Burn,  sweet  odors,  burn  ! 
For  incense  at  the  altar  of  her  pleasure  ! 
Let  music  breathe  with  a  voluptuous  measure, 
And  witchcrafts  trance  her  wheresoe'er  she  turns." 


It  is  in  your  quality  as  bachelor  that  you  get  the  loan 
of  this  idea,  for  in  love,  "  a  trick  not  worth  an  egg," 
so  it  be  new,  is  worth  the  knowing. 

Here's  a  precious  coil !  The  red  heifer  has  chewed 
up  a  lace  cape,  and  the  breachy  ox  has  run  over  the 
"  bleach  and  lavender"  of  a  seven  days'  wear  and 
washing.  It  must  be  laid  to  the  drought,  unless  a 
taste  for  dry  lace  as  well  as  wet  can  be  proved  on  the 
peccant  heifer.  The  ox  would  to  the  drink — small 
blams  to  him.  But  lace  is  expensive  fodder,  and  the 
heifer  must  be  "hobbled" — so  swears  the  washerwo- 


"  Her  injury 
's  the  jailer  to  her  pay." 

1  have  only  the  "turn  overs"  left,  dear  Doctor,  and  I 


LETTER     XIII. 

THIS  is  not  a  very  prompt  answer  to  your  last,  my 
dear  Doctor,  for  I  intended  to  have  taken  my  brains 
to  you  bodily,  and  replied  to  all  your  "whether-or- 
noes"  over  a  broiled  oyster  at  *****  .  Perhaps  I 
may  bring  this  in  my  pocket.  A  brace  of  ramblers, 
brothers  of  my  own,  detained  me  for  a  while,  but  are 
flitting  to-day;  and  Bartlett  has  been  here  a  week,  to 
whom,  more  particularly,  I  wish  to  do  the  honors  of 
the  scenery.  We  have  climbed  every  hill-top  that  has 
the  happiness  of  looking  down  on  the  Owaga  and  Sus 
quehannah,  and  he  agrees  with  me  that  a  more  lovely 
and  habitable  valley  has  never  sat  to  him  for  its  pic 
ture.  Fortunately,  on  the  day  of  his  arrival,  the  dust 
of  a  six  weeks'  drought  was  washed  from  its  face,  and, 
barring  the  wilt  that  precedes  autumn,  the  hill-sides 
were  in  holyday  green  and  looked  their  fairest.  He 
has  enriched  his  portfolio  with  four  or  five  delicious 
i  sketches,  and  if  there  were  gratitude  or  sense  of  re 
nown  in  trees  and  hills,  they  would  have  nodded  their 
tops  to  the  two  of  us.  It  is  not  every  valley  or  pine- 
tree  that  finds  painter  and  historian,  but  these  are  as 
insensible  as  beauty  and  greatness  were  ever  to  the 
claims  of  their  trumpeters. 

How  long  since  was  it  that  I  wrote  to  you  of  Bartlett's 
visit  to  Constantinople  ?  Not  more  than  four  or  five 
weeks,  it  seems  to  me,  and  yet,  here  he  is,  on  his  re 
turn  from  a  professional  trip  to  Canada,  with  all  its 
best  scenery  snug  in  his  portmanteau !  He  steamed  to 
Turkey  and  back,  and  steamed  again  to  America,  and 
will  be  once  more  in  England  in  some  twenty  days- 
having  visited  and  sketched  the  two  extremities  of  the 
civilized  world.  Why,  I  might  farm  it  on  the  Susque 
hannah  and  keep  my  town-house  in  Constantinople — 
(with  money).  It  seemed  odd  to  me  to  turn  over  a 
drawing-book,  and  find  on  one  leaf  a  freshly-pencilled 
sketch  of  a  mosque,  and  on  the  next  a  view  of  Glen- 
lnary_my  turnip-field  in  the  foreground.  And  then 
the  man  himself— pulling  a  Turkish  para  and  a  Yan 
kee  shinplaster  from  his  pocket  with  the  same  pinch 
— shuffling  to  breakfast  in  my  abri  on  the  Susquehan 
nah,  in  a  pair  of  peaked  slippers  of  Constantinople, 
that  smell  as  freshly  of  the  bazar  as  if  they  were 
bought  yesterday— waking  up  with  "pekke !  pekke  ! 
my  good  fellow!"  when  William  brings  him  his  boots 
—and  never  seeing  a  blood-red  maple  (just  turned 
with  the  frost)  without  fancying  it  the  sanguine  flag 
of  the  Bosphorus  or  the  bright  jacket  of  a  Greek  !  All 
this  unsettles  me  strangely.  The  phantasmagoria  of 
my  days  of  vagabondage  flit  before  my  eyes  again. 
This,  "by-the-by,  do  you  remember,  in  Smyrna?" 
and  "the  view  you  recollect  from  the  Seraglio!"  and 
such  like  slip-slop  of  travellers,  heard  within  reach  of 
my  corn  and  pumpkins,  affects  me  like  the  mad  poet's 

proposition, 

"  To  twitch  the  rainbow  from  the  sky, 
And  splice  both  ends  together." 


22 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


I  have  amused  my  artist  friend  since  he  has  been 
here,  with  an  entertainment  not  quite  as  expensive  as 
the  Holly  Lodge  fireworks,  but  quite  as  beautiful — 
the  burning  of  log-heaps.  Instead  of  gossipping  over 
the  tea-table  these  long  and  chilly  evenings,  the  three 
or  four  young  men  who  have  been  staying  with  us 
were  very  content  to  tramp  into  the  woods  with  a  bun 
dle  of  straw  and  a  match-box,  and  they  have  been  in 
itiated  into  the  mysteries  of  "picking  and  piling,"  to 
the  considerable  improvement  of  the  glebe  of  Glen- 
mary.  Shelley  says, 

"  Men  scarcely  know  how  beautiful  fire  is  ;" 

and  1  am  inclined  to  think  that  there  are  varieties  of 
glory  in  its  phenomena  which  would  make  it  worth 
even  your  metropolitan  while  to  come  to  the  west  and 
"burn  fallow."  At  this  season  of  the  year — after  the 
autumn  droughts,  that  is  to  say — the  whole  country 
here  is  covered  with  a  thin  smoke,  stealing  up  from 
the  fires  on  every  hill,  in  the  depths  of  the  woods,  and 
on  the  banks  of  the  river ;  and  what  with  the  graceful 
smoke-wreaths  by  day,  and  the  blazing  beacons  all 
around  the  horizon  by  night,  it  adds  much  to  the  va 
riety,  and,  I  think,  more  to  the  beauty  of  our  western 
October.  It  edifies  the  traveller  who  has  bought  wood 
by  the  pound  in  Paris,  or  stiffened  for  the  want  of  it  in 
the  disforested  Orient,  to  stand  off  a  rifle-shot  from  a 
crackling  wood,  and  toast  himself  by  a  thousand  cords 
burnt  for  the  riddance.  What  experience  I  have  had 
of  these  holocausts  on  my  own  land  has  not  diminished 
the  sense  of  waste  and  wealth  with  which  I  first 
watched  them.  Paddy's  dream  of  "rolling  in  a  bin 
of  gold  guineas,"  could  scarce  have  seemed  more 
luxurious. 

Bartlett  and  I,  and  the  rest  of  us,  in  our  small  way, 
Burnt  enough,  I  dare  say,  to  have  made  a  comfortable 
drawing-room  of  Hyde  Park  in  January,  and  the  ef 
fects  of  the  white  light  upon  the  trees  above  and 
around  were  glorious.  But  our  fires  were  piles  of 
logs  and  brush — small  beer,  of  course,  to  the  confla 
gration  of  a  forest.  I  have  seen  one  that  was  like  the 
Thousand  Columns  of  Constantinople  ignited  to  a  red 
heat,  and  covered  with  carbuncles  and  tongues  of 
flame.  It  was  a  temple  of  fire — the  floor,  living  coals 
— the  roof,  a  heavy  drapery  of  crimson — the  aisles 
held  up  by  blazing  and  innumerable  pillars,  sometimes 
swept  by  the  wind  till  they  stood  in  still  and  naked 
redness  while  the  eye  could  see  far  into  their  depths, 
and  again  covered  and  wreathed  and  laved  in  ever- 
changing  billows  of  flame.  We  want  an  American 
Tempesta  or  "  Savage  Rosa,"  to  "  wreak"  such  pic 
tures  on  canvass ;  and  perhaps  the  first  step  to  it  would 
be  the  painting  of  the  foliage  of  an  American  autumn. 
These  glorious  wonders  are  peculiarities  of  our  coun 
try  ;  why  should  they  not  breed  a  peculiar  school  of 
effect  and  color? 

"  Gentle  Doughty,  tell  me  why  !" 

Among  the  London  news  which  has  seasoned  our 
breakfasts  of  late,  1  hear  pretty  authentically  that  Camp 
bell  is  coming  to  look  up  his  muse  on  the  Susquehan- 
nah.  He  is  at  present  writing  the  life  of  Petrarch,  and 
superintending  the  new  edition  of  his  works  (to  be  il 
lustrated  in  the  style  of  Rogers's),  and,  between  whiles, 
projecting  a  new  poem;  and,  my  letters  say,  is  likely 
to  find  the  way,  little  known  to  poets,  from  the  Tem 
ple  of  Fame  to  the  Temple  of  Mammon.  One  would 
think  it  were  scarce  decent  for  Campbell  to  die  without 
seeing  Wyoming.  1  trust  he  will  not.  What  would 
I  not  give  to  get  upon  a  raft  with  him,  and  float  down 
the  Susquehannah  a  hundred  miles  to  the  scene  of 
his  Gertrude,  watching  his  fine  face  while  the  real  dis 
placed  the  ideal  valley  of  his  imagination.  I  think  it 
would  trouble  him.  Probably  in  the  warmth  of  com 
position  and  the  familiarity  of  years,  the  imaginary 
scene  has  become  enamelled  and  sunk  into  his  mind, 


ind  it  would  remain  the  home  of  his  poem  after  Wy 
oming  itself  had  made  a  distinct  impression  on  his 
memory-  They  would  be  two  places — not  one.  He 
wrote  it  with  some  valley  of  his  own  land  in  his  mind's 
ye,  and  gray  Scotland  and  sunny  and  verdant  Penn 
sylvania  will  scarce  blend.  But  he  will  be  welcome. 
Oh,  how  welcome  !  America  would  rise  up  to  Camp 
bell.  He  has  been  the  bard  of  freedom,  generous  and 
chivalric  in  all  his  strains;  and,  nation  of  merchants 
as  we  are,  I  am  mistaken  if  the  string  he  has  most 
played  is  not  the  master-chord  of  our  national  char 
acter.  The  enthusiasm  of  no  people  on  earth  is  so 
easily  awoke,  and  Campbell  is  the  poet  of  enthusiasm. 
The  schoolboys  have  him  by  heart,  and  what  lives  up 
on  their  lips,  will  live  and  be  beloved  for  ever. 

It  would  be  a  fine  thing,  I  have  often  thought,  dear 
Doctor,  if  every  English  author  would  be  at  the  pains 
to  reap  his  laurels  in  this  country.  If  they  could 
overcome  their  indignation  at  our  disgraceful  robbery 
of  their  copyrights,  and  come  among  the  people  who 
read  them  for  the  love  they  bear  them — read  them  as 
they  are  not  read  in  England,  without  prejudice  or  fa 
vor,  personal  or  political — it  would  be  more  like  taking 
a  peep  at  posterity  than  they  think.  In  what  is  the 
judgment  of  posterity  better  than  that  of  contempora 
ries  ?  Simply  in  that  the  author  is  seen  from  a  dis 
tance — his  personal  qualities  lost  to  the  eye,  and  his 
literary  stature  seen  in  proper  relief  and  proportion. 
We  know  nothing  of  the  degrading  rivalries  and  diffi 
culties  of  his  first  efforts,  or,  if  we  do,  we  do  not  real 
ize  them,  never  having  known  him  till  success  sent  his 
name  over  the  water.  His  reputation  is  a  Minerva  to 
us — sprung  full-grown  to  our  knowledge.  We  praise 
him,  if  we  like  him,  with  the  spirit  in  which  we  criti 
cise  an  author  of  another  age — with  no  possible  pri 
vate  bias.  Witness  the  critiques  upon  Bulwerin  this 
country,  compared  with  those  of  his  countrymen. 
What  review  has  ever  given  him  a  tithe  of  his  deserv- 
ings  in  England  !  Their  cold  acknowledgment  of  his 
merits  reminds  one  of  Enobarbus's  civility  to  Menas: 

"  S'ir  !  I  have  praised  you 

When  you  have  well  deserved  ten  times  as  much 
As  I  have  said  you  did  !" 

1  need  not  to  you,  dear  Doctor  enlarge  upon  the  ben 
efits,  political  and  social,  to  both  countries,  which 
would  follow  the  mutual  good-will  of  our  authors. 
We  shall  never  have  theirs  while  we  plunder  them  so 
barefacedly  as  now,  and  I  trust  in  heaven  we  shall, 
some  time  or  other,  see  men  in  Congress  who  will  go 
deeper  for  their  opinions  than  the  circular  of  a  pira 
ting  bookseller. 

I  wish  you  to  send  me  a  copy  of  Dawes's  poems 
when  they  appear.  I  have  long  thought  he  was  one 
of  the  unappreciated  ;  but  I  see  that  his  fine  play  of 
Athanasia  is  making  stir  among  the  paragraphers.  Ru- 
fus  Dawes  is  a  poet  if  God  ever  created  one,  and  he 
lives  his  vocation  as  well  as  imagines  it.  I  hope  he 
will  srmfile  off  the  heavenward  end  of  his  mortal  coil 
under  the  cool  shades  of  my  Omega.  He  is  our  Cole 
ridge,  and  his  talk  should  have  reverent  listeners.  I 
have  seldom  been  more  pleased  at  a  change  in  the  lit 
erary  kaleidoscope,  than  at  his  awakening  popularity  ; 
and,  I  pray  you  blow  what  breath  you  have  into  his 
new-spread  sail.  Cranch,  the  artist,  who  lived  with 
me  in  Italy  (a  beautiful  scholar  in  the  art,  whose  hand 
is  fast  overtaking  his  head),  has,  I  see  by  the  papers, 
made  a  capital  sketch  of  him.  Do  you  know  wheth 
er  it  is  to  be  engraved  for  the  book  ? 

Ossian  represents  the  ghosts  of  his  heroes  lament 
ing  that  they  had  not  had  their  fame,  and  it  is  a  pity, 
I  think,  that  we  had  not  some  literary  apostle  to  tell 
us,  from  the  temple  of  our  Athens,  who  are  the  un 
known  great.  Certain  it  is,  they  often  live  among  us, 
and  achieve  their  greatness  unrecognised.  How  pro 
foundly  dull  was  England  to  the  merits  of  Charles 


LETTER*  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


23 


Lamb  till  he  died !  Yet  he  was  a  fine  illustration  of 
my  remark  just  now.  America  was  posterity  to 
him.  The  writings  of  all  our  young  authors  were 
tinctured  with  imitation  of  his  style,  when,  in  Eng 
land  (as  I  personally  know),  it  was  difficult  to  light  up 
on  a  person  who  had  read  his  Elia.  Truly  "  the  root 
of  a  great  name  is  in  the  dead  body."  There  is  Wal 
ter  Savage  Landor,  whose  Imaginary  Conversations 
contain  more  of  the  virgin  ore  of  thought  than  any 
six  modern  English  writers  together,  and  how  many 
persons  in  any  literary  circle  know  whether  he  is  alive 
or  dead— an  author  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time  or 
Queen  Victoria's  ?  He  is  a  man  of  fortune,  and  has 
bought  Boccacio's  garden  at  Fiesole,  and  there  upon 
the  "classic  Atricus,  he  is  tranquilly  achieving  his  re 
nown,  and  it  will  beunburied,and  acknowledged  when 
he  is  dead.  Travellers  will  make  pilgrimages  to  the 
spot  where  Boccacio  and  Landor  have  lived,  and  won 
der  that  they  did  not  mark  while  it  was  done— this 
piling  of  Ossa  on  Pelion. 

By  the  way,  Mr.  Landor  has  tied  me  to  the  tail  of 
his  immortality,  for  an  offence  most  innocently  com 
mitted  ;  and  I  trust  his  biographer  will  either  let  me 
slip  off  at  "  Lethe's  wharf,"  by  expurgating  the  book 
of  me,  or  do  me  justice  in  a  note.     When  I  was  in 
Florence,  I  was  indebted  to  him  for  much  kind  atten 
tion  and   hospitality ;  and  I   considered  it  one  of  the 
highest  of  my  good  fortunes  abroad  to  go  to  Fiesole 
and  dine  in  the  scene  of  the  Decameron  with  an  au 
thor  who  would,  I  thought,  live  as  long  as  Boccacio. 
Mr.  Landor  has  a  glorious  collection  of  paintings,  and 
at  parting  he  presented  me  with  a  beautiful  picture  by 
Cuyp,  which  I  had  particularly  admired,  and  gave  me 
some  of  my  most  valuable  letters  to  England,  where  I 
was  then  going.     I  mention  it  to  show  the  terms  on 
which  we  separated.     While  with  him  on  my  last  vis 
it,  I  had  expressed  a  wish  that  the  philosophical  con 
versations  in  his  books  were  separated  from  the  politi 
cal,  and  repablished  in  a  cheap  form  in  America  ;  and 
the  following  morning,  before  daylight,   his   servant 
knocked  at  the  door  of  my  lodgings,  with  a  package 
of  eight  or  ten  octavo  volumes,  and  as  much  manu 
script,  accompanied  by  a  note  from  Mr.  Landor,  com 
mitting  the  whole  to  my  discretion.     These  volumes, 
I  should  tell  you,  were  interleaved  and  interlined  very 
elaborately,  and  having  kept  him  company  under  his 
olive-trees,  were   in   rather   a   dilapidated    condition. 
How  to  add  such  a  bulk  of  precious  stuff  to  my  bag 
gage,  I  did  not  know.     I  was  at  the  moment  of  start 
ing,  and   it  was  very  clear  that   even  if  the  custom 
house  officers  took  no  exception  to  them  (they  are 
outlawed  through  Italy  for  their  political  doctrines), 
they  would  never  survive  a  rough  journey  over  the 
Appenines  and  Alps.     I  did  the  best  I  could.     I  sent 
them  with  a  note  to  Theodore  Fay,  who  was  then  in 
Florence,  requesting  him  to  forward  them  to  America 
by  ship  from  Leghorn ;  a  commission  which  I  knew 
that  kindest  and  most  honorable  of  men  and  poets 
would  execute  with  the  fidelity  of  an  angel.     So  he 
did.     He  handed  them  to  an  American  straw-bonne 
maker  (who,  he  had  no  reason  to  suppose,  was  the  ma 
licious  donkey  he  afterward  proved),  and  through  him 
they  were  shipped  and  received  in  New  York.     I  ex 
pected,  at  the  time  I  left  Florence,  to  make  but  a  short 
stay  in  England,  and  sail  in  the  same  summer  for 
America;   instead  of  which  I  remained  in  England 
two  years  at  the  close  of  which  appeared  a  new  book 
of  Mr.  Landor's  Pericles  and  Aspasia.     I  took  it  up 
with  delight,  and  read  it  through  to  the  last  chapter, 
where,  of  a  sudden,  the  author  jumps  from  the  acad 
emy  of  Plato,  clean  over  three  thousand  years,  upon 
the  shoulders  of  a  false  American,  who   had  robbed 
him  of  invaluable  manuscripts  !    So  there  I  go  to  pos 
terity  astride  the  Finis  of  Pericles  and  Aspasia! 
had  corresponded  occasionally  with  Mr.  Lnndor,  and 
in  one  of  my  letters  had  stated  the  fact,  that  the  man 


uscripts  had  been  committed  to  Mr.  Miles  to  forward 
to  America.  He  called,  in  consequence,  at  the  shop 
of  this  person  who  denied  any  knowledge  of  the 
books,  leaving  Mr.  Landor  to  suppose  that  I  had  been 
either  most  careless  or  most  culpable  in  my  manage 
ment  of  his  trust.  The  books  had,  however,  after  a 
brief  stay  in  New  York,  followed  me  to  London  ;  and 
Fay  and  Mr.  Landor  both  happening  there  together, 
the  explanation  was  made  and  the  books  and  manu 
scripts  restored  unharmed  to  the  author.  I  was  not 
Ion"  enough  in  London  afterward  to  know  whether  I 
was" forgiven  by  Mr.  Laudor;  but,  as  his  book  has  not 
reached  a  second  edition,  I  am  still  writhing  in  my 
purgatory  of  print. 

1'havy  told  you  this  long  story,  dear  Doctor,  because 
I  am  sometimes  questioned  on  the  subject  by  the  lit 
erary  people  with  whom  you  live,  and  hereafter  I  shall 
transfer  them  to  your  button  for  the  whole  matter. 
|  But  what  a  letter !  Write  me  two  for  it,  and  revenge 
yourself  in  the  postage. 


LETTER  XIV. 

THIS  is  return  month,  dear  Doctor,  and  if  it  were 
only  to  be  in  fashion,  you  should  have  a  quid  pro  quo 
for  your  four  pages.  October  restores  and  returns; 
your  gay  friends  and  invalids  return  to  the  city  ;  the 
birds  and  the  planters  return  to  the  south ;  the  seed 
returns  to  the  granary ;  the  brook  at  my  feet  is  noisy 
again  with  its  returned  waters  ;  the  leaves  are  return 
ing  to  the  earth ;  and  the  heart  that  has  been  out-of- 
do'ors  while  the  summer  lasted,  comes  home  from  its 
wanderings  by  field  and  stream,  and  returns  to  feed  on 
its  harvest  of  new  thoughts,  past  pleasures,  and 
strengthened  and  confirmed  affections.  At  this  time 
of  the  year,  too,  you  expect  a  return  (not  of  paste 
board)  for  your  "  visits ;"  but,  as  you  have  made  me 
no  visit,  either  friendly  or  professional,  I  owe  you 
nothing.  And  that  is  the  first  consolation  I  have 
found  for  your  short-comings  (or  no-comings-at-all) 
to  Glenmary. 

Now,  consider  my  arms   a-kimbo,  if  you  please, 
while  I  ask  you  what  you  mean  by  calling  Glenmary 
"backwoods!"      Faith,  I  wish  it  were  more  back 
woods  than  it  is.      Here  be  cards  to  be  left,  sir,  morn 
ing  calls  to  be  made,  body-coat  soirees,  and  ceremony 
enough  to  keep  one's  most  holyday  manners  well  aired. 
The  two  miles'  distance  between  me  and  Owego  serves 
me  for  no  exemption,  for  the  village  of  Canewana, 
which  is  a  mile  nearer  on  the  road,  is  equally  within 
the  latitude  of  silver  forks ;  and  dinners  are  given  in 
both,  which  want  no  one  of  the  belongings  of  Bel- 
arave-square,  save  port-wine  and  powdered  footmen. 
I  think  it  is  in  one  of  Miss  Austin's  novels  that  a  lady 
claims  it  to  be  a  smart  neighborhood  in  which  she 
«  dines  with  four-and-twenty  families."      If  there  are 
not  more  than  half  as  many  in  Owego  who  give  din 
ners,  there  are  twice  as  many  who  ask  to  tea  and  give 
ice-cream  and  champaign.      Then  for  the   fashions, 
there  is  as  liberal  a  sprinkling  of  French  bonnets  in 
the  Owego  church  as  in  any  village  congregation  in 
England.     And   for  the  shops— that  subject  is  worthy 
of  a  sentence  by  itself.     When  I  say  there  is  no  need 
,  to  go  to  New- York  for  hat,  boots,  or  coat,   1  mean 
1  that  the  Owego  tradesmen  (if  you  are  capable  of  de- 
1  scribin*  what  you  want)  are  capable  of  supplying  you 
with  the  best  and  most  modish  of  these  articles.    Call 
you  that  "  backwoods  ?" 

All  this,  I  am  free  to  confess,  clashes  with  the  beau 
I  ideal  of  the 

"  Beatus  ille  qni  procvl,"  etc. 

I   had  myself  imagined  (and  continued   to  imagine 
i  for  some  weeks  after  coming  here),  that,  so  near  the 


24 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


primeval  wilderness,  I  might  lay  up  my  best  coat  and 
my  ceremony  in  lavender,  and  live  in  fustian  and  a 
plain  way.  I  looked  forward  to  the  delights  of  a  broad 
straw  hat,  large  shoes,  baggy  habiliments,  and  leave  to 
sigh  or  whistle  without  offence  ;  and  it  seemed  to  me 
that  it  was  the  conclusion  of  a  species  of  apprentice 
ship,  and  the  beginning  of  my  "  freedom."  To  be 
above  no  clean  and  honest  employment  of  one's  time, 
to  drive  a  pair  of  horses  or  a  yoke  of  oxen  with  equal 
alacrity,  and  to  be  commented  on  for  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other ;  to  have  none  but  wholesome  fanning 
cares,  and  work  with  nature  and  honest  yeomen,  and 
be  quite  clear  of  mortifications,  envies,  advice,  remon 
strance,  coldness,  misapprehensions,  and  etiquettes ; 
this  is  what  I,  like  most  persons  who  "forswear  the 
full  tide  of  the  world,"  looked  upon  as  the  blessed 
promise  of  retirement.  But,  alas  !  wherever  there  is 
a  butcher's  shop  and  a  post-office,  an  apothecary  and 
a  blacksmith,  an  "  Arcade"  and  a  milliner — wherever 
the  conveniences  of  life  are,  in  short — there  has  al 
ready  arrived  the  Procrustes  of  opinion.  Men's  eyes 
will  look  on  you  and  bring  you  to  judgment,  and  un 
less  you  would  live  on  wild  meat  and  corn-bread  in  the 
wilderness,  with  neither  friend  nor  helper,  you  must 
give  in  to  a  compromise — yield  half  at  least  of  your 
independence,  and  take  it  back  in  common-place  com 
fort.  This  is  very  every-day  wisdom  to  those  who 
know  it,  but  you  are  as  likely  as  any  man  in  the  world 
to  have  sat  with  your  feet  over  the  fire,  and  fancied 
yourself  on  a  wild  horse  in  a  prairie,  with  nothing  to 
distinguish  you  from  the  warlike  Camanche,  except 
capital  wine  in  the  cellar  of  your  wigwam,  and  the  last 
new  novel  and  play,  which  should  reach  this  same  wig 
wam — you  have  not  exactly  determined  how  !  Such 
"  pyramises  are  goodly  things,"  but  they  are  built  of 
the  smoke  of  your  cigar. 

This  part  of  the  country  is  not  destitute  of  the 
chances  of  adventure,  however,  and  twice  in  the  year, 
at  least,  you  may,  if  you  choose,  open  a  valve  for  your 
spirits.  One  half  the  population  of  the  neighbor 
hood  is  engaged  in  what  is  called  lumbering,  and  until 
the  pine  timber  of  the  forest  can  be  counted  like  the 
cedars  of  Lebanon,  this  vocation  will  serve  the  uses 
of  the  mobs  of  England,  the  revolutions  of  France,  and 
the  plots  of  Italy.  I  may  add  the  music  and  theatres 
of  Austria  and  Prussia,  the  sensual  indulgence  of  the 
Turk,  and  the  intrigue  of  the  Spaniard ;  for  there  is 
in  every  people  under  the  sun  a  superflu  of  spirits  un- 
consumed  by  common  occupation,  which,  if  not  turn 
ed  adroitly  or  accidentally  to  some  useful  or  harmless 
end,  will  expend  its  reckless  energy  in  trouble  and 
mischief. 

The  preparations  for  the  adventures  of  which  I 
speak,  though  laborious,  are  often  conducted  like  a 
frolic.  The  felling  of  the  trees  in  mid-winter,  the  cut 
ting  of  shingles,  and  the  drawing  out  on  the  snow,  are 
employments  preferred  by  the  young  men  to  the  tamer 
but  less  arduous  work  of  the  farm-yard ;  and  in  the 
temporary  and  uncomfortable  shanties,  deep  in  the 
woods,  subsisting  often  on  nothing  but  pork  and  whis 
key,  they  find  metal  more  attractive  than  village  or 
fireside.  The  small  streams  emptying  into  the  Sus- 
quehannah  are  innumerable,  and  eight  or  ten  miles 
back  from  the  river  the  arks  are  built,  and  the  mate 
rials  of  the  rafts  collected,  ready  to  launch  with  the 
first  thaw.  I  live,  myself,  as  you  know,  on  one  of  these 
tributaries,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  its  junction.  The 
Owago  trips  along  at  the  foot  of  my  lawn,  as  private 
and  untroubled  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year  as 
Virginia  Water  at  Windsor ;  but,  as  it  swells  in  March, 
the  noise  of  voices  and  hammering  coming  out  from 
the  woods  above,  warn  us  of  the  approach  of  an  ark, 
and  at  the  rate  of  eight  or  ten  miles  an  hour  the  rude 
structure  shoots  by,  floating  high  on  the  water  without 
its  lading  (which  it  takes  in  at  the  village  below),  and 
manned  with  a  singing  and  saucy  crew,  who  dodge  the 


branches  of  the  trees,  and  work  their  steering  paddles 

,  with  an  adroitness  and  nonchalance  which  sufficiently 

I  shows  the  character  of  the  class.     The  sudden  bends 

I  which  the  river  takes  in  describing  my  woody  Omega, 

!  put  their  steersmansbip  to  the  test ;   and  when  the 

I  leaves  are  off  the  trees,  it  is  a  curious  sight  to  see  the 

bulky  monsters,   shining  with   new  boards,  whirling 

around  in  the  swift  eddies,  and,  when  caught  by  the 

!  current  again,  gliding  off  among  the  trees  like  a  sing- 

|  ing  and  swearing  phantom  of  an  unfinished  barn. 

At  the  village  they  take  wheat  and  pork  into  the 
arks,  load  their  rafts  with  plank  and  shingles,  and  wait 
i  for  the  return  of  the  freshet.  It  is  a  fact  you  may  not 
:  know,  that  when  a  river  is  rising,  the  middle  is  the 
highest,  and  vice  versa  when  falling,  sufficiently  proved 
|  by  the  experience  of  the  raftsmen,  who,  if  they  start 
I  before  the  flow  is  at  its  top,  can  not  keep  their  crafts 
from  the  shore.  A  pent  house,  barely  sufficient  for 
a  man  to  stretch  himself  below,  is  raised  on  the  deck, 
with  a  fire-place  of  earth  and  loose  stone,  and  with 
what  provision  they  can  afford,  and  plenty  of  whiskey, 
they  shove  out  into  the  stream.  Thenceforward  it  is 
vogue  la  galere  !  They  have  nothing  to  do,  all  day, 
but  abandon  themselves  to  the  current,  sing  and  dance 
and  take  their  turn  at  the  steering  oars  ;  and  when  the 
sun  sets  they  look  out  for  an  eddy,  and  pull  in  to  the 
shore.  The  stopping-places  are  not  very  numerous, 
and  are  well  known  to  all  who  fellow  the  trade  ;  and, 
as  the  river  swarms  with  rafts,  the  getting  to  land,  and 
making  sure  of  a  fastening,  is  a  scene  always  of  great 
competition,  and  often  of  desperate  fighting.  When 
all  is  settled  for  the  night,  however,  and  the  fires  are 
lit  on  the  long  range  of  the  flotilla,  the  raftsmen  get 
together  over  their  whiskey  and  provender,  and  tell 
the  thousand  stories  of  their  escapes  and  accidents  ; 
and  with  the  repetition  of  this,  night  after  night,  the 
whole  rafting  population  along  the  five  hundred  miles 
of  the  Susquehannah  becomes  partially  acquainted, 
and  forms  a  sympathetic  corj)s,  whose  excitement  and 
esprit  might  be  roused  to  very  dangerous  uses. 

By  daylight  they  are  cast  off  and  once  more  on  the 
current,  and  in  five  or  seven  days  they  arrive  at  tide 
water,  where  the  crew  is  immediately  discharged,  and 
start,  usually  on  foot,  to  follow  the  river  home  again. 
There  are  several  places  in  the  navigation  which  are 
dangerous,  such  as  rapids  and  dam-sluices  ;  and  what 
with  these,  and  the  scenes  at  the  eddies,  and  their  pil 
grimage  through  a  thinly  settled  and  wild  country 
home  again,  they  see  enough  of  adventure  to  make 
them  fireside  heroes,  and  incapacitate  them  (while 
their  vigor  lasts,  at  least),  for  all  the  more  quiet  habits 
of  the  fanner.  The  consequence  is  easy  to  be  seen. 
Agriculture  is  but  partially  followed  throughout  the 
country,  and  while  these  cheap  facilities  for  transport 
ing  produce  to  the  seaboard  exist,  those  who  are  con 
tented  to  stay  at  home,  and  cultivate  the  rich  river 
lands  of  the  country,  are  sure  of  high  prices  and  a 
ready  reward  for  their  labor. 

Moral.  Come  to  the  Susquehannah,  and  settle  on 
a  farm.  You  did  not  know  what  I  was  driving  at  all 
this  while ! 

The  raftsmen  who  "  follow  the  Delaware"  (to  use 
their  own  poetical  expression)  are  said  to  be  a  much 
wilder  class  than  those  on  the  Susquehannah.  In  re 
turning  to  Owego,  by  different  routes,  I  have  often 
fallen  in  with  parties  of  both  :  and  certainly  nothing 
could  be  more  entertaining  than  to  listen  to  their  tales. 
In  a  couple  of  years  the  canal  route  on  the  Susque 
hannah  will  lay  open  this  rich  vein  of  the  picturesque 
and  amusing,  and  as  the  tranquil  boat  glides  peace 
fully  along  the  river  bank,  the  traveller  will  be  sur 
prised  with  the  strange  effect  of  these  immense  flo 
tillas,  with  their  many  fires  and  wild  people,  lying  in 
the  glassy  bends  of  the  solitary  stream,  the  smoke 
stealing  through  the  dark  forest,  and  the  confusion  of 
a  hundred  excited  voices  breaking  the  silence.  In  my 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


25 


trip  down  the  river  in  the  spring,  I  saw  enough  that 
was  novel  in  this  way  to  fill  a  new  portfolio  for  Bart- 
lett,  and  I  intend  he  shall  raft  it  with  me  to  salt  water 
the  next  time  he  comes  among  us. 

How  delicious  are  these  October  noons  !  They 
will  soon  chill,  I  am  afraid,  and  I  shall  be  obliged  to 
give  up  my  out-of-door's  habits ;  but  I  shall  do  it  un 
willingly.  I  have  changed  sides  under  the  bridge,  to 
sit  with  my  feet  in  the  sun,  and  I  trust  this  warm  cor 
ner  will  last  me  till  November  at  least.  The  odor  of 
the  dying  leaves,  and  the  song  of  the  strengthening 
brook,  are  still  sufficient  allurements,  and  even  your 
rheumatism  (of  which  the  Latin  should  be  podagra) 
might  safely  keep  me  company  till  dinner*  Adieu, 
dear  Doctor  !  write  me  a  long  account  of  Vestris  and 
Matthews  (how  you  like  them,  I  mean,  for  I  know  very 
well  how  I  like  them  myself),  and  thank  me  for  turning 
over  to  you  a  new  leaf  of  American  romance.  You 
are  welcome  to  write  a  novel,  and  call  it  "  The  Rafts 
man  of  the  Susquehannah." 


LETTER  XV. 

"  When  did  I  descend  the  Susquehannah  on  a 
raft  ?"  Never,  dear  Doctor !  But  I  have  descended 
it  in  a  steamboat,  and  that  may  surprise  you  more.  It 
is  an  ire-navigable  river,  it  is  true  :  and  it  is  true,  too, 
that  there  are  some  twenty  dams  across  it  between 
Owego  and  Wilkesbarre  ;  yet  have  I  steamed  it  from 
Owego  to  Wyoming,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  in 
twelve  hours — on  the  top  of  a  freshet.  The  dams  were 
deep  under  water,  and  the  river  was  as  smooth  as  the 
Hudson.  And  now  you  will  wonder  how  a  steamer 
came,  by  fair  means,  at  Owego. 

A  year  or  two  since,  before  there  was  a  prospect  of 
extending  the  Pennsylvania  canal  to  this  place,  it  be 
came  desirable  to  bring  the  coal  of  "  the  keystone 
state"  to  these  southern  counties  by  some  cheaper 
conveyance  than  horse-teams.  A  friend  of  mine,  liv 
ing  here,  took  it  into  his  head  that,  as  salmon  and 
shad  will  ascend  a  fall  of  twenty  feet  in  a  river,  the 
propulsive  energy  of  their  tails  might  possibly  furnish 
a  hint  for  a  steamer  that  would  shoot  up  dams  and 
rapids.  The  suggestion  was  made  to  a  Connecticut 
man,  who,  of  course,  undertook  it.  He  would  have 
been  less  than  a  Yankee  if  he  had  not  tried.  The 
product  of  his  ingenuity  was  the  steamboat  "  Susque 
hannah,"  drawing  but  eighteen  inches ;  and,  besides 
her  side-paddles,  having  an  immense  wheel  in  the 
stern,  which  playing  in  the  slack  water  of  the  boat, 
would  drive  her  up  Niagara,  if  she  would  but  hold  to 
gether.  The  principal  weight  of  her  machinery  hung 
upon  two  wooden  arches  running  fore  and  aft,  and  al 
together  she  was  a  neat  piece  of  contrivance,  and 
promised  fairly  to  answer  the  purpose. 

I  think  the  "  Susquehannah"  had  made  three  trips 
when  she  broke  a  shaft,  and  was  laid  up ;  and,  what 
with  one  delay  and  another,  the  canal  was  half  com 
pleted  between  her  two  havens  before  the  experiment 
had  fairly  succeeded.  A  month  or  two  since,  the  pro 
prietors  determined  to  run  her  down  the  river  for  the 
purpose  of  selling  her,  and  t  was  invited  among  others 
to  join  in  the  trip. 

The  only  offices  professionally  filled  on  board  were 
those  of  the  engineer  and  pilot.  Captain,  mate,  fire 
men,  steward,  cook,  and  chambermaid,  were  repre 
sented  en  amateur  by  gentlemen  passengers.  We 
rang  the  bell  at  the  starting  hour  with  the  zeal  usually 
displayed  in  that  department,  and,  by  the  assistance  of 
the  current,  got  oil  in  the  usual  style  of  a  steamboat 
departure,  wanting  only  the  newsboys  and  pirkpocUeis. 
With  a  stream  running  at  five  knots,  and  paddles  cal 
culated  to  mount  a  cascade,  we  could  not  fail  to  take 
the  river  in  gallant  style,  and  before  we  had  regulated 


our  wood-piles  and  pantry,  we  were  backing  water  at 
Athens,  twenty  miles  on  our  way. 

Navigating  the  Susquehannah  is  very  much  like 
dancing  "  the  cheat."  You  are  always  making  straight 
up  to  a  mountain,  with  no  apparent  possibility  of 
escaping  contact  with  it,  and  it  is  an  even  chance  up 
to  the  last  moment  which  side  of  it  you  are  to  chassez 
with  the  current.  Meantime  the  sun  seems  capering 
about  to  all  points  of  the  compass,  the  shadows  falling 
in  every  possible  direction,  and  north,  south,  east,  and 
west,  changing  places  with  the  familiarity  of  a  mas 
querade.  The  blindness  of  the  river's  course  is  in 
creased  by  the  innumerable  small  islands  in  its  bosom, 
whose  tall  elms  and  close-set  willows  meet  half-way 
those  from  either  shore ;  and,  the  current  very  often 
dividing  above  them,  it  takes  an  old  voyager  to  choose 
between  the  shaded  alleys,  by  either  of  which  you 
would  think  Arethusa  might  have  eluded  her  lover. 

My  own  mental  occupation,  as  we  glided  on,  was 
the  distribution  of  white  villas  along  the  shore,  on 
spots  where  nature  seemed  to  have  arranged  the 
ground  for  their  reception.  I  saw  thousands  of  sites 
where  the  lawns  were  made,  the  terraces  defined  and 
levelled,  the  groves  tastefully  clumped,  the  ancient 
trees  ready  with  their  broad  shadows,  the  approaches 
to  the  water  laid  out,  the  banks  sloped,  and  in  every 
thing  the  labor  of  art  seemingly  all  anticipated  by  na 
ture.  I  grew  tired  of  exclaiming,  to  the  friend  who 
was  beside  me,  "What  an  exquisite  site  for  a  villa! 
What  a  sweet  spot  for  a  cottage !"  If  I  had  had 
the  power  to  people  the  Susquehannah  by  the  wave 
of  a  wand,  from  those  I  know  capable  of  appreciating 
its  beauty,  what  a  paradise  I  could  have  spread  out 
between  my  own  home  and  Wyoming  !  It  was  pleas 
ant  to  know,  that  by  changes  scarcely  less  than  ma 
gical,  these  lovely  banks  will  soon  be  amply  seen  and 
admired,  and  probably  as  rapidly  seized  upon  and  in 
habited  by  persons  of  taste.  The  gangs  of  laborers 
at  the  foot  of  every  steep  cliff,  doing  the  first  rough 
work  of  the  canal,  gave  promise  of  a  speedy  change 
in  the  aspect  of  this  almost  unknown  river. 

It  was  sometimes  ticklish  steering  among  the  rafts 
and  arks  with  which  the  river  was  thronged,  and  we 
never  passed  one  without  getting  the  raftsman's  rude 
hail.  One  of  them  furnished  my  vocabulary  with  a 
new  measure  of  speed.  He  stood  at  the  stern  oar  of 
a  shingle  raft,  gaping  at  us,  open-mouthed  as  we  came 
down  upon  him.  "Wai!"  said  he,  as  we  shot  past, 
"you're  going  a  good  hickory,  mister  !"  It  was  amu 
sing,  again,  to  run  suddenly  round  a  point  and  come 
upon  a  raft  with  a  minute's  warning  ;  the  voyagers  as 
little  expecting  an  intrusion  upon  their  privacy,  as  a 
retired  student  to  be  unroofed  in  a  London  garret. 
The  different  modes  of  expressing  surprise  became  at 
last  quite  a  study  to  me,  yet  total  indifference  was  not 
infrequent ;  and  there  were  some  who,  I  think,  would 
not  have  risen  from  their  elbows  if  the  steamer  had 
flown  bodily  over  them. 

We  passed  the  Falls  of  Wyalusing  (most  musical 
j  of  Indian  names)  and  Buttermilk  Falls,  both  cascades 
j  worthy  of  being  known  and  sung,  and  twilight  over- 
i  took  us  some  two  hours  from  Wyoming.  We  had  no 
!  lights  on  board,  and  the  engineer  was  unwilling  to  run 
in  the  dark ;  so  our  pilot  being  an  old  raftsman,  we 
put  into  the  first  "eddy,"  and  moored  for  the  night. 
These  eddies,  by  the  way,  would  not  easily  be  found 
by  a  stranger,  but  to  the  practised  navigators  of  the 
river  they  are  all  numbered  and  named  like  harbors  on 
a  coast.  The  strong  current,  in  the  direct  force  of 
which  the  clumsy  raft  would  find  it  impossible  to  conic 
to,  and  moor,  is  at  these  places  turned  back  by  son  it- 
projection  of  the  shore,  or  ledge  at  the  bottom,  ami  a 
pool  of  still  water  is  formed  in  which  the  craft  may  lie- 
secure  for  the  night.  The  lumbermen  give  a  cheer 
when  they  have  steered  successfully  in,  and  springing 
joyfully  ashore,  drive  their  stakes,  eat,  dance,  quarrel, 


26 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


and  sleep ;  and  many  a  good  tale  is  told  of  rafts  slily 
unmoored,  and  set  adrift  at  midnight  by  parties  from 
the  eddies  above,  and  of  the  consequent  adventures  of 
running  in  the  dark.  We  had  on  board  two  gentle 
men  who  had  earned  an  independence  in  this  rough 
vocation,  and  their  stories,  told  laughingly  against 
each  other,  developed  well  the  expedient  and  hazard 
of  the  vocation.  One  of  them  had  once  been  mis 
chievously  cut  adrift  by  the  owner  of  a  rival  cargo, 
when  moored  in  an  eddy  with  an  ark-load  of  grain. 
The  article  was  scarce  and  high  in  the  markets  below, 
and  he  had  gone  to  sleep  securely  under  his  pent 
house,  and  was  dreaming  of  his  profits,  when  he  sud 
denly  awoke  with  a  shock,  and  discovered  that  he  was 
high  and  dry  upon  a  sedgy  island  some  miles  below 
his  moorings.  The  freshet  was  falling  fast,  arid  soon 
after  daylight  his  competitor  for  the  market  drifted 
past  with  a  laugh,  and  confidently  shouted  out  a  good- 
by  till  another  voyage.  The  triumphant  ark-master 
floated  on  all  day,  moored  again  at  night,  and  arrived 
safely  at  tide-water,  where  the  first  object  that  struck 
his  sight  was  the  ark  he  had  left  in  the  sedges,  its 
freight  sold,  its  owner  preparing  to  return  home,  and 
the  market  of  course  forestalled  !  The  "  Roland  for 
his  Oliver"  had,  with  incredible  exertion,  dug  a  canal 
for  his  ark,  launched  her  on  the  slime,  and  by  risking  the 
night-running,  passed  him  unobserved  and  gained  a 
day — a  feat  as  illustrative  of  the  American  genius  for 
emergency  as  any  on  record. 

It  was  a  still,  starlight  night,  and  the  river  was  laced 
with  the  long  reflections  of  the  raft-fires,  while  the 
softened  songs  of  the  men  over  their  evening  carouse, 
came  to  us  along  the  smooth  water  with  the  effect  of 
far  better  music.  What  with  "  wooding"  at  two  or 
three  places,  however,  and  what  with  the  excitement 
of  the  day,  we  were  too  fatigued  to  give  more  than  a  | 
glance  and  a  passing  note  of  admiration  to  the  beauty  j 
of  the  scene,  and  the  next  question  was,  how  to  come  j 
by  Sancho's  "  blessed  invention  of  sleep."  We  had  ! 
been  detained  at  the  wooding-places,  and  had  made  ! 
no  calculation  to  lie  by  a  night.  There  were  no  beds  j 
on  board,  and  not  half  room  enough  in  the  little  cabin 
to  distribute  to  each  passenger  six  feet  by  two  of 
floor.  The  shore  was  wild,  and  not  a  friendly  lamp 
glimmering  on  the  hills  ;  but  the  pilot  at  last  recollect 
ed  having  once  been  to  a  house  a  mile  or  two  back 
from  the  river,  and  with  the  diminished  remainder  of 
our  provender  as  a  pis  oiler  in  case  of  finding  no  sup 
per  in  our  forage,  we  started  in  search.  We  stum 
bled  and  scrambled,  and  delivered  our  benisons  to  rock 
and  brier,  till  I  would  fain  have  lodged  with  Trinculo 
"  under  a  moon-calf's  gaberdine,"  but  by-and-by  our 
leader  fell  upon  a  track,  and  a  light  soon  after  glim 
mered  before  us.  We  approached  through  cleared 
fields,  and,  without  the  consent  of  the  farmer's  dog,  to 
whose  wishes  on  the  subject  we  were  compelled  to  do 
violence,  the  blaze  of  a  huge  fire  (it  was  a  chilly  night 
of  spring)  soon  bettered  our  resignation.  A  stout, 
white-headed  fellow  of  twenty-eight  or  thirty,  bare 
footed,  sat  in  a  cradle,  see-sawing  before  the  fire,  and 
without  rising  when  we  entered,  or  expressing  the 
slightest  surprise  at  our  visit,  he  replied  to  our  ques 
tions,  that  he  was  the  father  of  some  twelve  sorrel  and 
barefoot  copies  of  himself  huddled  into  the  corner,  j 
that  "  the  woman"  was  his  wife,  and  that  we  were 
welcome  "to  stay."  Upon  this  the  "woman"  for  the 
first  time  looked  at  us,  counted  us  with  the  nods  of 
her  head,  and  disappeared  with  the  only  candle. 

When  his  wife  reappeared,  the  burly  farmer  ex 
tracted  himself  with  some  difficulty  from  the  cradle, 
and  without  a  word  passing  between  them,  entered 
upon  his  office  as  chamberlain.  We  followed  him ' 
up  stairs,  where  we  were  agreeably  surprised  to  find 
three  very  presentable  beds  ;  and  as  I  happened  to 
be  the  last  and  fifth,  I  felicitated  myself  on  the  good 
chance  of  sleeping  alone,  "  clapped  into  my  prayers," 


as  was  recommended  to  Master  Barnardine,  and  was 
asleep  before  the  candle-snuff.  I  should  have  said 
that  mine  was  a  "  single  bed,"  in  a  sort  of  a  closet  par 
titioned  off  from  the  main  chamber. 

How  long  I  had  travelled  in  dream-land  I  have  no 
means  of  knowing,  but  I  was  awoke  by  a  touch  on  the 
shoulder,  and  the  information  that  1  must  make  room 
for  a  bedfellow.  It  was  a  soft-voiced  young  gentle 
man,  as  well  as  I  could  perceive,  with  his  collar  turned 
down,  and  a  book  under  his  arm.  Without  very  clear 
ly  remembering  where  I  was,  I  represented  to  my  pro 
posed  friend  that  I  occupied  as  nearly  as  possible  the 
whole  of  the  bed — to  say  nothing  of  a  foot,  over  which 
he  mighfsee  (the  foot)  by  looking  where  it  outreached 
the  coverlet.  It  was  a  very  short  bed,  indeed. 

"  It  was  large  enough  for  me  till  you  came,"  said 
the  stranger,  modestly. 

"  Then  I  am  the  intruder  ?"  I  asked. 

"  No  intrusion  if  you  will  share  with  me,"  he  said ; 
"  but  as  this  is  my  bed,  and  I  have  no  resource  but 
the  kitchen-fire,  perhaps  you  will  let  me  in." 

There  was  no  resisting  his  tone  of  good  humor,  and 
my  friend  by  this  time  having  prepared  himself  to  take 
up  as  little  room  as  possible,  I  consented  that  he  should 
blow  out  the  candle  and  get  under  the  blanket.  The 
argument  and  the  effort  of  making  myself  small  as  he 
crept  in,  had  partially  waked  me,  and  before  my  ears 
were  sealed  up  again,  I  learned  that  my  companion, 
who  proved  rather  talkative,  was  the  village  school 
master.  He  taught  for  twelve  dollars  a  month  and  his 
board — taking  the  latter  a  week  at  a  time  with  the  dif 
ferent  families  to  which  his  pupils  belonged.  For  the 
present  week  he  was  quartered  upon  our  host,  and  hav 
ing  been  out  visiting  past  the  usual  hour  of  bedtime, 
he  was  not  aware  of  the  arrival  of  strangers  till  he  found 
me  on  his  pillow. 

I  went  to  sleep,  admiring  the  amiable  temper  of  my 
new  friend  under  the  circumstances,  but  awoke  pres 
ently  with  a  sense  of  suffocation.  The  schoolmaster 
was  fast  asleep,  but  his  arms  were  clasped  tightly  round 
my  throat.  I  disengaged  them  without  waking  him, 
and  composed  myself  again. 

Once  more  I  awoke  half  suffocated.  My  friend's  arms 
had  found  their  way  again  round  my  neck,  and,  though 
evidently  fast  asleep,  he  was  drawing  me  to  him  with 
a  clasp  I  found  it  difficult  to  unloose.  I  shook  him 
broad  awake,  and  begged  him  to  take  notice  that  he 
was  sleeping  with  a  perfect  stranger.  He  seemed  very 
much  annoyed  at  having  disturbed  me,  made  twenty 
apologies,  and  turning  his  back,  soon  fell  asleep.  I 
followed  his  example,  wishing  him  a  new  turn  to  his 
dream. 

A  third  time  I  sprang  up  choking  from  the  pillow, 
drawing  my  companion  fairly  on  end  with  me.  I  could 
stand  it  no  longer.  Even  when  half  aroused  he  could 
hardly  be  persuaded  to  let  go  his  hold  of  my  neck.  I 
jumped  out  of  bed,  and  flung  open  the  window  for  a 
little  air.  The  moon  had  risen,  and  the  night  was  ex 
quisitely  fine.  A  brawling  brook  ran  under  the  win 
dow,  and  after  a  minute  or  two,  being  thoroughly 
awaked,  I  looked  at  my  watch  in  the  moonlight,  and 
found  it  wanted  but  an  hour  or  two  of  morning.  Afraid 
to  risk  my  throat  again,  and  remembering  that  I  could 
not  fairly  quarrel  with  my  friend,  who  had  undoubtedly 
a  right  to  embrace,  after  his  own  fashion,  any  intruder 
who  ventured  into  his  proper  bed,  I  went  down  stairs, 
and  raked  open  the  embers  of  the  kitchen  fire,  which 
served  me  for  less  affectionate  company  till  dawn. 
How  and  where  he  could  have  acquired  his  caressing 
habits,  were  subjects  upon  which  I  speculated  unsatis 
factorily  over  the  coals. 

My  companions  were  called  up  at  sunrise  by  the 
landlord,  and  as  we  were  paying  for  our  lodging,  the 
schoolmaster  came  down  to  see  us  off,  I  was  less  sur 
prised  when  I  came  to  look  at  him  by  daylight.  It 
was  a  fair,  delicate  boy  of  sixteen,  whose  slender  health 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


27 


had  probably  turned  his  attention  to  books,  and  who, 
perhaps,  had  never  slept  away  from  his  mother  till  he 
went  abroad  to  teach  school.  Quite  satisfied  with  one 
experiment  of  filling  the  maternal  relation,  I  wished 
him  a  less  refractory  bedfellow,  and  we  hastened  on 
board. 

The  rafts  were  under  weigh  before  us,  and  the  tor 
toise  had  overtaken  the  hare,  for  we  passed  several 
that  we  had  passed  higher  up,  and  did  not  fail  to  get  a 
jeer  for  our  sluggishness.  An  hour  or  two  brought 
us  to  Wilkesbarre,  an  excellent  hotel,  good  breakfast, 
and  new  and  kind  friends  ;  and  so  ended  my  trip  on 
the  Susquehannah.  Some  other  time  I  will  tell  you 
how  beautiful  is  the  valley  of  Wyoming,  which  I  have 
since  seen  in  the  holyday  colors  of  October.  Thereby 
hangs  a  tale  too,  worth  telling  and  hearing;  and  as  a 
promise  is  good  parting  stuff,  adieu ! 


LETTER  XVI. 

THE  books  and  the  music  came  safe  to  hand,  dear 
Doctor,  but  I  trust  we  are  not  to  stand  upon  guid-pro- 
quosities.  The  barrel  of  buckwheat  not  only  cost  mo 
nothing,  but  I  have  had  my  uses  of  it  in  the  raising,  and 
can  no  more  look  upon  it  as  value,  than  upon  a  flower 
which  I  pluck  to  smell,  and  give  away  when  it  is  faded. 
I  have  sold  some  of  my  crops  for  the  oddity  of  the  sensa 
tion  ;  and  I  assure  you  it  is  very  much  like  being  paid 
for  dancing  when  the  ball  is  over.  Why,  consider  the 
offices  this  very  buckwheat  has  performed.  There  was 
the  trust  in  Providence,  in  the  purchase  of  the  seed — 
a  sermon.  There  were  the  exercise  and  health  in 
ploughing,  harrowing,  and  sowing — -prescription  and 
pill.  There  was  the  performance  of  the  grain,  its 
sprouting,  its  flowering,  it  earing,  and  its  ripening — a 
great  deal  more  amusing  than  a  play.  Then  there 
were  the  harvesting,  thrashing,  fanning,  and  grinding — 
a  sort  of  pastoral  collection,  publication,  and  purgation 
by  criticism.  Now,  suppose  your  clergyman,  your 
physician,  your  favorite  theatrical  corps,  your  pub 
lisher,  printer,  and  critic,  thrashed  and  sold  in  bags 
for  six  shillings  a  bushel !  I  assure  you  the  cases  are 
similar,  except  that  the  buckwheat  makes  probably 
the  more  savory  cake. 

The  new  magazine  was  welcome  ;  the  more,  that  it 
brought  b,ack  to  my  own  days  of  rash  adventure  in 
such  tiqklish  craft,  with  a  pleasant  sense  of  deliver 
ance  from  its  risk  and  toil.  The  imprint  of  "  No.  I., 
Vol.  I.,"  reads  to  me  like  a  bond  for  the  unreserved 
abandonment  of  time  and  soul.  Truly,  youth  is  wise 
ly  provided  with  little  forethought,  a'nd  much  hope. 
What  child  would  learn  the  alphabet  if  he  could  see 
at  a  glance  the  toil  that  lies  behind  it?  I  look  upon 
the  fresh  type  and  read  the  sanguine  prospectus  of 
this  new-born  monthly,  and  remember,  with  astonish 
ment,  the  thoughtlessness  with  which,  years  ago,  I 
launched  in  the  same  gay  colors  such  a  venture  on 
the  wave.  It  is  a  voyage  that  requires  plentiful  stores, 
much  experience  of  the  deeps  and  shallows  of  the 
literary  seas,  and  a  hand  at  every  halyard;  yet,  to 
}  abandon  my  simile,  I  proposed  to  be  publisher  and 
/  editor,  critic  and  contributor;  and  I  soon  found  that  I 
might  as  well  have  added  reader  to  my  manifold  of- 
fices.  No  one  who  lias  not  tried  this  vocation  can 
-have  any  idea  of  tho  difficulty  of  procuring  the  lieht, 
s  yet  condensed — the.  fragmented,  yet  finished— the 
\  good-tempered  and  gentlemanly,  yet  liinh  so  i-oned 
and  dashing  papers  necessary  to  a  periodical.  A  man 
who  can  wrif*»  flu-m,  can,  in  our  country,  put  hims-lf 
to  a  more  profitable  use — and  does.  The  best  maga 
zine  writer  living,  in  my  opinion,  is  Edward  Everett; 
and  IK-  governs  a  state  with  the  same  time  and  atten 
tion  whidi  in  England,  perhaps,  would  be  cramped 
to  contributing  to  a  review.  Calhoun  might  write 


wonderfully  fine  articles.  Legar6,  of  Charleston,  has 
I  the  right  talent,  with  the  learning.  Crittenden,  of  the 
senate,  I  should  think  might  have  written  the  most 
brilliant  satirical  papers.  But  these,  and  others  like 
them,  are  men  the  country  and  their  own  ambition 
can  not  spare.  There  is  a  younger  class  of  writers, 
however;  and  though  the  greater  number  of  these,  too, 
(ill  responsible  stations  in  society,  separate  from  general 
literature,  they  might  be  induced,  probably,  were  the 
remuneration  adequate,  to  lend  their  support  to  a 
periodical  "till  the  flower  of  their  fame  shall  be  more 
blown."  Among  them  are  Felton  and  Longfellow, 
botli  professors  at  Cambridge ;  and  Sumner  and  Hen 
ry  Cleaveland,  lawyers  of  Boston — a  knot  of  writers 
who  sometimes  don  the  cumbrous  armor  of  the  North 
American  ReyitJw,  but  who  would  show  to  more  ad 
vantage  in  the  lighter  harness  of  the  monthlies.  I 
could  name~Twenfy  more  to  any  one  interested  to 
know  them,  all  valuable  allies  to  a  periodical ;  but  no 
literary  man  questions  that.  We  have  in  our  country  f.  .' 
talent  enough,  if  there  were  the  skill  and  means  to  put 
it  judiciously  together. 

Coleridge  and  others  have  mourned  over  the  age  of 
reviews,  as  the  downfall  and  desecration  of  authorship ; 
but  I  am  inclined  to  think  authors  gain  more  than  they 
lose  by  the  facility  of  criticism.  What  chance  has  a 
book  on  a  shelf,  waiting  to  be  called  for  by  the  purcha 
ser  uninformed  of  its  merits,  to  one  whose  beauties 
and  defects  have  been  canvassed  by  these  Mercury- 
winged  messengers,  volant  and  universal  as  the  quick 
est  news  of  the  hour?  How  slow  and  unsympathetic 
must  have  been  the  progress  of  a  reputation,  when  the 
judicious  admirer  of  a  new  book  could  but  read  and 
put  it  by,  expressing  his  delight,  at  farthest,  to  his 
immediate  friend  or  literary  correspondent?  The  ap 
prehensive  and  honest  readers  of  a  book  are  never 
many;  but  in  our  days,  if  it  reach  but  one  of  these, 
what  is  the  common  outlet  of  his  enthusiasm  ?  Why, 
a  trumpet-tongued  review,  that  makes  an  entire  peo 
ple  partakers  of  his  appreciation,  in  the  wax  and  wane 
of  a  single  moon.  Greedily  as  all  men  and  women 
devour  books,  ninety-nine  in  a  hundred  require  them 
to  be  first  cut  up,  liable  else,  like  children  at  their 
meals,  to  swallow  the  wrong  morsel.  Yet,  like  chil 
dren  still,  when  the  good  is  pointed  out,  they  digest  it 
as  well  as  another,  and  so  is  diffused  an  understanding, 
as  well  as  prompt  admiration  of  the  author.  For  my 
self,  I  am  free  to  confess  I  am  one  of  those  who  like 
to  take  the  first  taste  of  an  author  in  a  good  review.  1 
look  upon  the  reviewer  as  a  sensible  friend,  who  came\/ 
before  me  to  the  feast,  and  recommends  me  the  dish 
that  has  most  pleased  him.  There  is  a  fellowship  in 
agreeing  that  it  is  good.  I  have  often  wished  there 
were  a  Washington  among  the  critics — some  one  up 
on  whose  judgment,  freedom  from  paltry  motives,  gen 
erosity  and  fairness,  I  could  pin  my  faith  blindly  and 
implicitly.  Dilke,  of  the  London  Athenaeum,  is  the 
nearest  approach  to  this  character,  and  a  good  proof 
of  it  is  an  order  frequently  given  (a  London  publisher 
informed  me),  by  country  gentlemen  :  "  Send  me  ev 
erything  the  Athenaeum  praises."  Though  a  man  of 
letters,  Dilke  is  not  an  author,  and,  by  the  way,  dear 
Doctor,  I  think  in  that  lies  the  best  qualification,  if  not 
the  only  chance  for  the  impartiality  of  the  critic. 
How  few  authors  are  capable  of  praising  a  book  by 
which  their  own  is  thrown  into  shadow.  "  Why  does 
Plato  never  mention  Zenophon  ?  and  why  does  Zen- 
ophon  inveigh  against  Plato?" 

But  I  think  there  is  less  to  fear  from  jealousy,  than 
from  the  want  of  sympathy  between  writers  on  differ 
ent  subjects,  or  in  different  styles.  D'Israeli  the  el 
der,  from  whom  I  have  just  quoted,  sounds  the  depth 
of  this  matter  with  the  very  plummet  of  truth.  "  Kv- 
t  ery  man  of  genius  has  a  manner  of  his  own ;  a  mode 
j of  thinking  and  a  habit  of  style;  and  usually  decides 
I  on  a  work  as  it  approximates  or  varies  from  his  own. 


0" 


28 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


When  one  great  author  depreciates  another,  it  has  oft 
en  no  worse  source  than  his  own  taste.  The  witty 
Cowley  despised  the  natural  Chaucer;  the  cold,  clas 
sical  Boileau,  the  rough  sublimity  of  Crebillon ;  the 
refining  Marivaux,  the  familiar  Moliere.  The  deficient 
sympathy  in  these  men  of  genius,  for  modes  of  feeling 
opposite  to  their  own,  was  the  real  cause  of  their  opin 
ions  ;  and  thus  it  happens  that  even  superior  genius  is 
so,joften  liable  to  be  unjust  and  false  in  its  decisions." 
/Apropos  of  English  periodicals,  we  get  them  now 
almost  wet  from  the  press,  and  they  seem  far  off  and 
foreign  no  longer.  But  there  is  one  (to  me)  melan 
choly  note  in  the  Paean  with  which  the  Great  West 
ern  was  welcomed.  In  literature  we  are  no  longer  a 
distinct  nation.  The  triumph  of  Atlantic  steam  navi 
gation  has  driven  the  smaller  drop  into  the  larger,  and 
London  has  become  the  centre.  Farewell  nationali 
ty !  The  English  language  now  marks  the  limits  of  a 
new  literary  empire,  and  America  is  a  suburb.  Our 
themes,  our  resources,  the  disappearing  savage,  and 
the  retiring  wilderness,  the  free  thought,  and  the  ac 
tion  as  free,  the  spirit  of  daring  innovation,  and  the  ir 
reverent  question  of  usage,  the  picturesque  mixture 
of  many  nations  in  an  equal  home,  the  feeling  of  ex 
panse,  of  unsubserviency,  of  distance  from  time-hal 
lowed  authority  and  prejudice — all  the  elements  which 
were  working  gradually  but  gloriously  together  to 
make  us  a  nation  by  ourselves,  have,  in  this  approxi 
mation  of  shores,  either  perished  for  our  using,  or 
slipped  within  the  clutch  of  England.  What  effect 
the  now  near  and  jealous  criticism  of  that  country  will 
have  upon  our  politics  is  a  deeper  question,  but  our 
literature  is  subsidized  at  a  blow.  Hitherto  we  have 
been  to  them  a  strange  country  ;  the  few  books  that 
reached  them  they  criticised  with  complimentary  jeal 
ousy,  or  with  the  courtesy  due  to  a  stranger;  while 
our  themes  and  our  political  structures  were  looked  on 
with  the  advantage  of  distance,  undemeaned  by  ac 
quaintance  with  sources  or  familiarity  with  details. 
While  all  our  material  is  thrown  open  to  English  au 
thors,  we  gain  nothing  in  exchange,  for,  with  the  in 
stinct  of  descendants,  we  have  continued  to  look  back 
to  our  fathers,  and  our  conversance  with  the  wells  of 
English  literature  was  as  complete  as  their  own. 

The  young  American  author  is  the  principal  suffer 
er  by  the  change.  Imagine  an  actor  compelled  to 
make  a  debut  without  rehearsal  and  you  get  a  faint 
's  .shadow  of  what  he  has  lost.  It  was  some  advantage, 
let  me  tell  you,  dear  Doctor,  to  have  run  the  gauntlet 
of  criticism  in  America  before  being  heard  of  in 
England.  When  Irving  and  Cooper  first  appeared  as 
authors  abroad,  they  sprung  to  sight  like  Minerva,  full- 
grown.  They  had  seen  themselves  in  print,  had  re 
flected  and  improved  upon  private  and  public  criticism, 
and  were  made  aware  of  their  faults  before  they  were 
irrecoverably  committed  on  this  higher  theatre.  Keats 
died  of  a  rebuke  to  his  puerilities,  which,  had  it  been 
administered  here,  would  have  been  borne  up  against 
with  the  hope  of  higher  appeal  and  new  effort.  He 
might  have  been  the  son  of  an  American  apothecary, 
and  never  be  told  by  an  English  critic  to  "  return  to 
his  gallipots."  The  Atlantic  was,  hitherto,  a  friendly 
Lethe,  in  which  the  sins  of  youth  (so  heavily  and  un 
justly  visitited  on  aspirants  to  fame),  were  washed  out 
and  forgotton.  The  American  "licked  into  shape" 
by  the  efficient  tongues  of  envy  and  jealousy  at  home, 
stepped  ashore  in  England,  wary  and  guarded  against 
himself  and  others.  The  book  by  which  he  made 
himself  known,  might  have  been  the  successful  effort 
after  twenty  failures,  and  it  met  with  the  indulgence 
of  a  first.  The  cloud  of  his  failures,  the  remem 
brance  of  his  degradations  by  ridicule  were  left  behind. 
His  practised  skill  was  measured  by  other's  beginnings. 

We  suffer,  too,  in  our  social  position,  in  England. 
We  have  sunk  from  the  stranger  to  the  suburban  or 
provincial.  In  a  year  or  two  every  feature  and  detail 


of  our  country  will  be  as  well  known  to  English  soci 
ety  as  those  of  Margate  and  Brighton.  Our  similar 
ity  to  themselves  in  most  things  will  not  add  to  their 
respect  for  us.  We  shall  have  the  second  place  ac 
corded  to  the  indigenous  society  of  well-known  pla 
ces  of  resort  or  travel,  and  to  be  an  American  will  be 
in  England  like  being  a  Maltese  or  an  East  Indian — 
every  way  inferior,  in  short,  to  a  metropolitan  in  Lon 
don. 

You  see,  my  dear  Doctor,  how  1  make  my  corre 
spondence  with  you  serve  as  a  trap  for  my  stray 
thoughts  ;  and  you  will  say,  that  in  this  letter  I  have 
caught  some  that  might  as  well  have  escaped.  But 
as  the  immortal  Jack  "turned"  even  "diseases  to 
commodity,"  and  as  "  la  superiorite  est  une  infirmite 
sociale,"  perhaps  you  will  tolerate  my  dulness,  or  con 
sider  it  a  polite  avoidance  of  your  envy.  Write  me 
better  or  worse,  however,  and  I  will  shape  a  welcome 
to  it. 


LETTER  XVII. 

Do  you  remember,  my  dear  Doctor,  in  one  of  the 
Elizabethan  dramas  (I  forget  which),  the  description 
of  the  contention  between  the  nightingale  and  the 
page's  lute  ?  Did  you  ever  remark  how  a  bird,  sitting 
silent  in  a  tree,  will  trill  out,  at  the  first  note  which 
breaks  the  stillness,  as  if  it  had  waited  for  that  signal 
to  begin  ?  Have  you  noticed  the  emulation  of  pigs  in 
a  pasture — how  the  gallopping  by  of  a  horse  in  the 
road  sets  them  off  for  a  race  to  the  limits  of  the  cross- 
fence  ? 

I  have  been  sitting  here  with  my  feet  upon  the 
autumn  leaves,  portfolio  on  knee,  for  an  hour.  The 
shadow  of  the  bridge  cuts  a  line  across  my  breast, 
leaving  my  thinking  machinery  in  shadow,  while  the 
farmer  portion  of  me  mellows  in  the  sun ;  the  air  is  as 
still  as  if  we  had  suddenly  ceased  to  hear  the  growing 
of  the  grain,  and  the  brooks  runs  leaf-shod  over  the 
pebbles  like  a  child  frightened  by  the  silence  into  a 
whisper.  You  would  say  this  was  the  very  mark  and 
fashion  of  an  hour  for  the  silent  sympathy  of  letter- 
writing.  Yet  here  have  I  sat,  with  the  temptation  of 
an  unblotted  sheet  before  me,  and  my  heart  and 
thoughts  full  and  ready,  and  by  my  steady  gazing  in 
the  brook,  you  would  fancy  I  had  taken  the  sun's  func 
tion  to  myself,  and  was  sitting  idle  to  shine.  All  at 
once  from  the  open  window  of  the  cottage  poured  a 
passionate  outbreak  of  Beethoven's  music  (played  by 
the  beloved  hand),  and  with  a  kind  of  fear  that  I  should 
not  overtake  it,  and  a  resistless  desire  (which,  I  dare 
say,  you  have  felt  in  hearing  music)  to  appropriate 
such  angelic  utterance  to  the  expression  of  my  own 
feelings,  I  forthwith  started  into  a  scribble,  and  have 
filled  my  first  page  as  you  see — without  drawing  nib. 
If  turning  over  the  leaf  break  not  the  charm,  you  are 
likely  to  have  an  answer  writ  to  your  last  before  the 
shadow  on  my  breast  creep  two  buttons  downward. 

Your  letter  was  short,  and  if  this  were  not  the  com 
mencement  of  a  new  score,  I  should  complain  of  it 
more  gravely.  Writing  so  soon  after  we  had  parted, 
you  might  claim  that  you  had  little  to  say  ;  yet  I 
thought  (over  that  broiled  oyster  after  the  play)  that 
your  voluble  discourse  would  "  put  a  girdle  round  the 
earth"  in  less  time  than  Ariel.  I  listened  to  you  as  a 
child  looks  at  the  river,  wondering  when  it  would  all 
run  by.  Yet  that  might  be  partly  disuse  in  listening — 
for  I  have  grown  rustic  with  a  year's  seclusion,  I 
found  it  in  other  things.  My  feet  swelled  with  walk- 
,  ing  on  the  pavement.  My  eyes  were  giddy  with  the 
!  j  multitude  of  people.  My  mouth  became  parched 
|  with  the  excitement  of  greetings,  and  surprises,  and 
the  raising  of  my  tones  to  the  metropolitan  pitch.  I 
'was  nearly  exhausted  by  mid-day  with  the  -'infinite 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


29 


deal  of  nothing."      Homoeopathy  alone  can  explain 
why  "  patter  versus  clatter"  did  not  finish  me  quite. 

Ah !  how  admirably  Charles  Matthews  played  that 
night*!  The  papers  have  well  named  him  the  Mer 
cury  of  comedians.  His  playing  will  probably  create 
a  new  school  of  play-writing — something  like  what  he 
has  aimed  at  (without  sufficient  study)  in  the  pieces  he 
has  written  for  himself.  The  finest  thing  I  could  im 
agine  in  the  dramatic  way,  would  be  a  partnership  (d 
la  Beaumont  and  Fletcher)  between  the  stage  knowl 
edge  and  comic  talent  of  Matthews,  and  the  penetra 
ting,  natural,  and  observant  humor  of  Boz.  The  true 
"  humor  of  the  time"  has  scarcely  been  reached,  on 
the  stage,  since  Moliere ;  and  it  seems  to  me,  that  a 
union  of  the  talents  of  these  two  men  (both  very 
young)  might  bring  about  a  new  era  in  high  comedy. 
Matthews  has  the  advantage  of  having  been  from  boy 
hood  conversant  with  the  most  polished  society.  He 
was  taken  to  Italy  when  a  boy  by  one  of  the  most 
munificent  and  gay  noblemen  of  England,  an  intimate 
of  his  father,  and,  if  I  have  been  rightly  informed,  was 
his  companion  for  several  years  of  foreign  residence 
and  travel.  I  remember  meeting  him  at  a  dinner-party 
in  London  three  or  four  years  since,  when  probably 
he  had  never  thought  seriously  of  the  stage.  Yet  at 
that  time  it  was  remarked  by  the  person  who  sat  next 
me,  that  a  better  actor  than  his  father  was  spoiled  in 
the  son.  He  was  making  no  particular  effort  at  humor 
on  the  occasion  to  which  I  refer;  but  the  servants,  in-  I 
eluding  a  fat  butler  of  remarkable  gravity,  were  forced 
to  ask  permission  to  leave  the  room — their  laughter  ] 
becoming  uncontrollable.  He  would  doubtless  have  | 
doubled  his  profits  in  this  country  had  he  come  as  a  sin 
gle  star;  but  I  trust  his  success  will  still  be  sufficient 
to  establish  him  in  an  annual  orbit — from  east  to  west. 

One  goes  to  the  city  with  fresh  eyes  after  a  year's 
absence,  and  I  was  struck  with  one  or  two  things, 
which,  in  their  gradual  wax  or  wane,  you  do  not  seem  i 
to  have  remarked.  What  Te  Deum  has  been  chanted,  ! 
for  example,  over  the  almost  complete  disappearance 
of  the  dandies  ?  I  saw  but  two  while  I  was  in  New- 
York,  and  in  them  it  was  nature's  caprice.  They 
would  have  been  dandies  equally  in  fig-leaves  or  wam 
pum.  The  era  of  (studiously)  plain  clothes  arrived 
some  years  ago  in  England,  where  Count  D'Orsay, 
and  an  occasional  wanderer  from  Broadway,  are  the 
only  freshly-remembered  apparitions  of  excessively  I  i 
dressed  men ;  and  slow  as  has  been  its  advent  to  us, 
it  is  sooner  come  than  was  predicted.  I  feared, 
for  one,  that  our  European  reputation  of  being  the 
most  expensive  and  showy  of  nations  was  based  upon 
the  natural  extreme  of  our  political  character,  and 
would  last  as  long  as  the  republic.  I  am  afraid 
still,  that  the  ostentation  once  shown  in  dress  is  but 
turned  into  another  channel,  and  that  the  equipages 
of  New- York  more  than  supply  the  showiness  abated 
in  the  costume.  But  even  this  is  a  step  onward. 
Finery  on  the  horse  is  better  than  finery  on  the  own 
er.  The  caparison  of  an  equipage  is  a  more  manly 
study  than  the  toilet  of  the  fine  gentleman ;  and  pos 
sesses,  besides,  the  advantage  of  being  left  properly  to 
the  saddler.  On  the  whole,  it  struck  me  that  the 
countenance  of  Broadway  had  lost  a  certain  flimsy  and 
tinsel  character  with  which  it  used  to  impress  me,  and 
had,  in  a  manner,  grown  hearty  and  unpretentious.  I 
should  be  glad  to  know  (and  none  can  tell  me  better 
than  yourself)  whether  this  is  the  outer  seeming  of 
deeper  changes  in  our  character.  Streets  have  ex 
pressive  faces,  and  I  have  long  marked  and  trusted 
them.  It  would  be  difficult  to  feel  fantastic  in  the 
sumptuous  gravity  of  Bond  street — as  difficult  to  feel 
grave  in  the  bright  airiness  of  the  Boulevard.  In 
these  two  thoroughfares  you  are  made  to  feel  the  dis 
tinctive  qualities  of  England  and  France.  What  say 
you  of  the  changed  expression  of  Broadway  1 

Miss   Martineau,    of  all   travellers,   has    doubtless 
written  the  most  salutary  book  upon  our  manners 


(malgre  the  womanish  pique  which  distorted  her 
judgment  of  Everett  and  others),  but  there  is  one  re 
proach  which  she  has  recorded  against  us,  in  which  1 
have  felt  some  patriotic  glory,  but  which  I  am  begin 
ning  to  fear  we  deserve  no  longer.  The  text  of  her 
fault-finding  is  the  Quixotic  attentions  of  Americans 
to  women  in  public  conveyances,  apropos  of  a  gentle 
man's  politeness  who  took  an  outside  seat  upon  a 
coach  to  give  a  lady  room  for  her  feet.  From  what  I 
could  observe  in  my  late  two  or  three  days'  travel,  1 
think  I  could  encourage  Miss  Martineau  to  return  to 
America  with  but  a  trifling  risk  of  being  too  particularly 
attended  to,  even  were  she  incognita  and  young.  We 
owe  this  decadence  of  chivalry  to  Miss  Martineau,  I 
think  it  may  be  safely  said.  In  a  country  where  every 
person  of  common  education  reads  every  book  of 
travels  in  which  his  manners  are  discussed,  the  most 
casual  mention  of  a  blemish,  even  by  a  less  authority 
than  Miss  Martineau,  acts  as  an  instant  cautery.  1 
venture  to  say  that  a  young  lady  could  scarcely  be 
found  in  the  United  States,  who  would  not  give  you 
on  demand  a  complete  list  of  our  national  faults  and 
foibles,  as  recorded  by  Hall,  Hamilton,  Trollope,  and 
Martineau.  Why,  they  form  the  common  staple  of 
conversation  and  jest.  Ay,  and  of  speculation !  Ham 
ilton's  book  was  scarcely  dry  from  the  press  before  or 
ders  were  made  out  to  an  immense  extent  for  egg-cups 
and  silver  forks.  Mrs.  Trollope  quite  extinguished 
the  trade  in  spit-boxes,  and  made  fortunes  for  the  fin 
ger-glass  manufacturers  ;  and  Captain  Marryat,  I  un 
derstand,  is  besieged  in  every  city  by  the  importers,  to 
know  upon  what  deficiency  of  table  furniture  he  in- 
tends_to  be  severe.  It  has  been  more  than  once  sug 
gested  (and  his  manners  aided  the  idea)  that  Hamilton 
was  probably  a  travelling  agent  for  the  plated-fork 
manufactories  of  Birmingham.  And  a  fair  caveat  to 
both  readers  and  reviewers  of  future  books  of  travels, 
would  be  an  inquiry  touching  their  probable  bearing 
on  English  manufactures*  I  wotild  not  be  illiberal  to 
Miss  Martineau,  but  I  would  ask  any  candid  person 
whether  the  influx  of  thick  shoes  and  cotton  stockings, 
simultaneously  with  her  arrival  in  this  country,  could 
have  been  entirely  an  unpremeditated  coincidence? 

We  are  indebted,  I  think,  to  the  Astor  House,  for 
one  of  the  pleasantest  changes  that  I  noticed  while 
away — and  I  like  it  the  better,  that  it  is  a  departure 
from  our  general  rule  of  imitating  English  habits  too 
exclusively.  You  were  with  us  there,  and  can  bear  wit 
ness  to  the  delightful  society  we  met  at  the  ladies'  ordi 
nary  ;  while  the  excellence  of  the  table  and  service, 
and  the  prevalence  of  well-bred  company,  had  drawn 
the  most  exclusive  from  their  private  parlors,  and 
given  to  the  daily  society  of  the  drawing-room  the 
character  of  the  gay  and  agreeable  watering-places  of 
Germany.  The  solitary  confinement  of  English  ho 
tels  always  seemed  to  me  particularly  unsuited  to  the 
position  and  wants  of  the  traveller.  Loneliness  is  no 
evil  at  home,  where  books  and  regular  means  of  em 
ployment  are  at  hand ;  but  to  be  abandoned  to  four 
walls  and  a  pormanteau,  in  a  strange  city,  of  a  rainy- 
day,  is  what  nothing  but  an  Englishman  would  dream 
of  calling  comfortable.  It  was  no  small  relief  to  us, 
on  that  drizzly  and  chilly  autumn  day,  which  you  re 
member,  to  descend  to  a  magnificent  drawing-room, 
filled  with  some  fifty  or  a  hundred  well-bred  people, 
and  pass  away  the  hours  as  they  would  be  passed  un 
der  similar  circumstances  in  a  hospitable  country- 
house  in  England.  The  beautiful  architecture  of  the 
Astor  apartments,  and  the  sumptuous  elegance  of  the 
furniture  and  table  service,  make  it  in  a  measure  a  pe 
culiarity  of  the  house ;  but  the  example  is  likely  to  be 
followed  in  other  hotels  and  cities,  and  I  hope  it  will 
become  a  national  habit,  as  in  Germany,  for  strangers 
to  meet  at  their  meals  and  in  the  public  rooms.  Life 
seems  to  me  too  short  for  English  exclusiveness  in  travel. 

1  determined  to  come  home  by  Wyoming,  after  you 
left  us,  and  took  the  boat  to  Philadelphia  accordingly. 


30 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


We  passed  two  or  three  days  in  that  clean  and  pleasant 
city,  and  among  other  things  made  an  excursion  to 
Laurel  Hill — certainly  the  most  beautiful  cemetery  in 
the  world  after  the  Necropolis  of  Scutari.  Indeed, 
the  spot  is  selected  with  something  like  Turkish  feel 
ing  ;  for  it  seems  as  if  it  were  intended  to  associate  the 
visits  to  the  resting-places  of  the  departed  more  with 
our  pleasures  than  our  duties.  The  cemetery  occu 
pies  a  lofty  promontory  above  the  Schuylkill,  possess 
ing  the  inequality  of  surface  so  favorable  to  the  ob 
ject,  and  shaded  with  pines  and  other  ornamental  trees 
of  great  age  and  beauty.  The  views  down  upon  the 
river,  and  through  the  sombre  glades  and  alleys  of  the 
burial-grounds,  are  unsurpassed  for  sweetness  and  re 
pose.  The  elegance  which  marks  everything  Phila- 
delphian,  is  shown  already  in  the  few  monuments 
erected.  An  imposing  gateway  leads  you  in  from  the 
high  road,  and  a  freestone  group,  large  as  life,  repre 
senting  old  Mortality  at  work  on  an  inscription,  and 
Scott  leaning  upon  a  tombstone  to  watch  his  toil,  faces 
the  entrance.  I  noticed  the  area  of  one  tomb  en 
closed  by  a  chain  of  hearts,  cast  beautifully  in  iron. 
The  whole  was  laid  out  in  gravel-walks,  and  there  was 
no  grave  without  its  flowers.  I  confess  the  spirit  of 
this  sweet  spot  affected  me  deeply,  and  I  look  upon 
this,  and  Mount  Auburn  at  Cambridge,  as  delightful 
indications  of  a  purer  growth  in  our  national  character 
than  politics  and  money-getting.  It  is  a  real-life 
poetry,  which  reflects  as  much  glory  upon  the  age  as 
the  birth  of  a  Homer. 

The  sun  has  crept  down  to  my  paper,  dear  Doctor, 
and  the  shadow  of  the  bridge  falls  cooler  than  is  good 
for  my  rheumatism.  I  wish  that  the  blessing  of  Ceres 
upon  Ferdinand  and  Miranda, 

"  Spring  come  to  you  at  farthest, 
In  the  very  end  of  harvest," 

might  light  on  Glenmary.  I  enjoy  winter  when  it 
comes,  but  its  approach  is  altogether  detestable.  It 
is  delightful  to  get  home,  however ;  for,  like  Prospero, 
in  the  play  I  have  just  quoted,  there  is  a  "delicate 
Ariel"  (content),  who  only  waits  on  me  in  solitude.  You 
will  carry  out  the  allegory,  and  tell  me  I  have  Caliban 
too,  but  to  the  rudeness  of  country  monsters,  I  take  as 
kindly  as  Trinculo.  And  now  I  must  to  the  woods, 
and  by  the  aid  of  these  same  "ancient  and  fish-like" 
monsters,  transplant  me  a  tree  or  two  before  sunset. 
Adieu. 


LETTER  XVIII. 

OUR  summer  friends  are  flown,  dear  Doctor  ;  not  a 
leaf  on  the  dogwood  worth  watching,  though  its  flu 
ted  leaves  were  the  last.  Still  the  cottage  looks  sum 
mery  when  the  sun  shines,  for  the  fir-trees,  which 
were  half  lost  among  the  flauntings  of  the  deciduous 
foliage,  look  out  green  and  unchanged  from  the  naked 
branches  of  the  grove,  with  neither  reproach  for  our 
neglect,  nor  boast  over  the  departed.  They  are  like 
friends,  who,  in  thinking  of  our  need,  forget  all  they 
have  laid  up  against  us  ;  and,  between  them  and  the 
lofty  spirits  of  mankind,  there  is  another  point  of  re 
semblance  which  I  am  woodsman  enough  to  know. 
Hew  down  those  gay  trees,  whose  leaves  scatter  at  the 
coming  of  winter,  and  they  will  sprout  from  the  trod 
den  root  more  vigorously  than  before.  The  ever 
green,  once  struck  to  the  heart,  dies.  If  you  are  of 
my  mind,  you  would  rather  learn  such  a  pretty  mock 
of  yourself  in  nature,  than  catch  a  fish  with  a  gold 
ring  in  his  maw. 

A  day  or  two  since,  very  much  such  another  bit  of 
country  wisdom  dropped  into  my  ears,  which  I  thought 
might  be  available  in  poetry,  albeit  the  proof  be  un- 
poetical.  Talking  with  my  neighbor,  the  miller,  about 
sawing  lumber  for  a  stable  I  am  building,  I  discovered, 
incidentally,  that  the  mill  will  do  more  work  between 
sunset  and  dawn,  than  in  the  same  number  of  hours 


by  daylight.  Without  reasoning  upon  it,  the  miller 
knows  practically  that  streams  run  faster  at  night.  The 
increased  heaviness  of  the  air,  and  the  withdrawal  of 
the  attraction  of  light,  are  probably  the  causes.*  But 
there  is  a  neat  tail  for  a  sonnet  coiled  up  in  the  fact, 
and  you  may  blow  it  with  a  long  breath  to  Tom  Moore. 

Many  thanks  for  your  offer  of  shopping  for  us,  but 
you  do  injustice  to  the  "cash  stores"  of  Owego  when 
you  presume  that  there  is  anything  short  of  "  a  hair 
off  the  great  Chain's  beard,"  which  is  not  found  in 
their  inventory.  By  the  way,  there  is  one  article  of 
which  I  feel  the  daily  want,  and  as  you  live  among  au 
thors  who  procure  them  ready  made  for  ballads  and 
romances,  perhaps  you  can  send  me  one  before  the 
canal  freezes.  I  mean  a  venerable  hermit,  who  hav 
ing  passed  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  human  life, 
shall  have  nothing  earthly  to  occupy  him  but  to  live 
in  the  woods  and  dispense  wisdom,  gratis,  to  all  corn 
ers.  I  don't  know  whether,  in  your  giddy  town  voca 
tions,  it  has  ever  occurred  to  you  to  turn  short  upon 
yourself,  in  the  midst  of  some  grave  but  insignificant 
routine,  and  inquire  (of  the  gentleman  within)  wheth 
er  this  is  the  fulfilment  of  your  destiny  ;  whether  these 
little  nothings  are  the  links  near  your  eye  of  the  great 
chain,  which  you  fancy,  in  your  elevated  hours,  con 
nects  you  with  something  kindred  to  the  stars.  It  is 
oftenest  in  fine  weather  that  I  thus  step  out  of  myself, 
and  retiring  a  little  space,  borrow  the  eyes  of  my  bet 
ter  angel,  and  take  a  look  at  the  individual  I  have  evac 
uated.  You  shall  see  him  yourself,  dear  Doctor,  with 
three  strokes  of  the  pen  ;  and  in  giving  your  judgment 
of  the  dignity  of  his  pursuits,  perform  the  office  to 
which  I  destine  the  hermit  above  bespoken. 

It  is  not  the  stout  fellow,  with  the  black  London 
hat,  somewhat  rusty,  who  stands  raking  away  cobs 
from  the  barn-floor,  though  the  hat  has  seen  worship 
ful  society  (having  fallen  on  those  blessed  days  when 
hats  are  as  inseparable  from  the  wearer  as  s/lk  stock 
ing  or  culotte),  and  sports  that  breadth  of  brim  by 
which  you  know  me  as  far  off  as  your  indigenous  om 
nibus.  That's  Jem,  the  groom,  to  whom,  with  all  its 
reminiscences,  the  hat  is  but  a  tile.  Nor  is  it  the  half 
sailor-looking,  world-worn,  never-smiling  man,  who  is 
plying  a  flail  upon  that  floor  of  corn,  with  a  look  as  if 
he  had  learned  the  stroke  with  a  cutlass,  though  in  his 
ripped  and  shredded  upper  garment,  you  might  recog 
nise  the  frogged  and  velvet  redingote,  native  of  the 
Rue  de  la  Paix,  which  has  fluttered  on  the  Symple- 
gades,  and  flapped  the  dust  of  the  Acropolis.  That 
is  my  tenant  in  the  wood,  who,  having  passed  his  youth 
and  middle  age  with  little  content  in  a  more  responsi 
ble  sphere  of  life,  lias  limited  his  wishes  to  solitude 
and  a  supply  of  the  wants  of  nature ;  and  though  quite 
capable  of  telling  story  for  story  with  my  old  fellow- 
traveller,  probably  thinks  of  it  only  to  wish  its  ravelled 
frogs  were  horn  buttons,  and  its  bursted  seams  less 
penetrable  by  the  rain. 

And  a  third  person  is  one  of  my  neighbors,  who  can 
see  nothing  done  without  showing  you  a  "  'cuter 
way,"  and  who,  sitting  on  the  sill  of  the  barn,  is  amu 
sing  himself,  quite  of  his  own  accord,  with  beheading, 
cleaning,  and  picking  an  unfortunate  duck,  whose  leg 
was  accidentally  broken  by  the  flail.  His  voluntary 
occupation  is  stimulated  by  neither  interest  nor  good 
nature,  but  is  simply  the  itching  to  be  doing  some 
thing,  which  in  one  shape  or  another,  belongs  to  ev 
ery  genuine  Jonathan.  Near  him,  in  cowhide  boots, 
frock  of  fustian,  and  broad-brimmed  sombrero  of  coarse 
straw,  stands,  breathing  from  a  bout  with  the  flail,  the 
individual  from  whom  I  have  stepped  apart,  and  upon 
whose  morning's  worth  of  existence  you  shall  put  a 
philosopher's  estimate. 

I  presume  my  three  hours'  labor  might  be  done  for 
about  three  shillings — my  mind,  meantime,  being  en 
tirely  occupied  with  what  I  was  about,  calculating  the 
number  of  bushels  to  the  acre,  the  price  of  corn  far 
ther  down  the  river,  and  between  whiles,  discussing 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


31 


the  merits  of  a  patent  corn-sheller,  which  we  had 
abandoned  for  the  more  laborious  but  quicker  process 
of  thrashing. 

"  Purty  'cute  tool !"  says  my  neighbor,  giving  the 
machine  a  look  out  of  the  corner  of  his  yellow  eye, 
"but  teoo  slow  !  Corn  ought  to  come  off  ravin'  dis 
tracted.  'Taint  no  use  to  eat  it  up  in  labor.  Where 
was  that  got  out  ?" 

"'Twas  invented  in  Albany,  I  rather  think." 
"  Wai,    I  guess  t'want.     It's  a  Varmount  notion. 
Rot   them   Green   Mountingeers !    they're   a   spiling 
the  country.     People  won't  work  when  them  things 
lay  round.     Have  you  heern  of  a  machine  for  botton- 
ing  your  gallowses  behind?" 
"  No,  I  have  not." 

"  Wai,  I've  been  expecting  on't.  There  aint  no 
other  hard  work  they  haint  economized.  Is  them 
your  hogs  in  the  garding  ?" 

Three  vast  porkers  had  nosed  open  the  gate,  during 
the  discussion,  and  were  making  the  best  of  their  op 
portunities.  After  a  vigorous  chase,  the  latch  was 
closed  upon  them  securely,  and  my  neighbor  resumed 
his  duck. 

"  Is  there  no  way  of  forcing  people  to  keep  those 
brutes  at  home,"  I  asked  of  my  silent  tenant. 

"  Yes,  sir.  The  law  provides  that  you  may  shut 
them  up,  and  send  word  to  the  owners  to  come  and 
take  them  away." 

"  Wai !  It's  a  chore,  if  you  ever  tried  it,  to  catch 
a  hog  if  he's  middlin'  spry,  and  when  he's  cotch, 
you've  got  to  feed  him,  by  law,  till  he's  sent  for ;  and 
it  don't  pay,  mister." 

"  But  you  can  charge  for  the  feed,"  says  the  other. 
"  Pesky  little,  I  tell  ye.     Pig  fodder  's  cheap,  and 
they  don't  pay  you  for  carrying  on't  to  'em,  nor  for 
catching  the  critters.     It's  a  losin'  consarn." 
"  Suppose  I  shoot  them." 

"  Sartin  you  can.  The  owner  '11  put  his  vally  on  it, 
and  you  can  have  as  much  pork  at  that  price  as  '11  fill 
your  barn.  The  hull  neighb'r'hood  '11  drive  their 
hogs  into  your  garding." 

I  saw  that  my  neighbor  had  looked  at  the  matter  all  I 
round  ;  but  I  was  sure,  from  his  manner,  that  he  could,  j 
if  encouraged,  suggest  a  remedy  for  the  nuisance. 

"  I  would  give  a  bushel  of  that  handsome  corn,"  said 
I, "  to  know  how  to  be  rid  of  them." 

"  Be  so  perlite  as  to  measure  it  out,  mister,  while  I 
head  in  that  hog.  I'll  show  you  how  the  deacon  kept 
'em  out  of  the  new  buryin'  ground  while  the  fence  was 
buildin'." 

He  laid  down  the  duck,  which  was,  by  this  time, 
fairly  picked,  and  stood  a  moment  looking  at  the  three  j 
hogs,  now  leisurely  turning  up  the  grass  at  the  road-  • 
side.     For  a  reason  which  I  did  not  at  the  moment  j 
conceive,  he  presently  made  a  dash  at  the  thinnest  of  j 
the  three,  a  hungry-looking  brute,  built  with  an  ap-  j 
proach  to  the  greyhound,  and  missed  catching  him  by 
an  arm's  length.     Unluckily  for  the  hog,  however,  the 
road  was  lined  with  crooked  rail-fence,  which  deceived 
him  with  constant  promise  of  escape  by  a  short  turn,  I 
and  by  a  skilful  heading  off,  and  a  most  industrious 
chase  of  some  fifteen  minutes,  he  was  cornered  at  last, 
and  secured  by  the  hind  leg. 

"  A  hog,"  said  he,   dragging  him  along  with  the 
greatest  gravity,  "hates  a  straight  line  like  pizen.     If 
they'd  run  right  in  eend,  you'd  never  catch  'em  in  | 
natur.     Like  some  folks,  aint  it  ?     Boy,  fetch  me  a  j 
skrimmage  of  them  whole  corn." 

He  drove  the  hog  before  him,  wheelbarrow  fashion, 
into  an  open  cow-pen,  and  put  up  the  bars.  The  boy 
(his  son,  who  had  been  waiting  for  him  outside  the  barn) 
brought  him  a  few  ears  of  ripe  corn,  and  as  soon  as  the 
hog  had  recovered  his  breath  a  little,  he  threw  them 
into  the  pen,  and  drew  out  a  knife  from  his  pocket, 
which  he  whetted  on  the  rail  before  him. 

"  Now,"  said  he,  as  the  voracious  animal,  unaccus 


tomed  to  such  appetizing  food,  seized  ravenously  on 
the  corn,  "it's  according  to  law  to  take  up  a  stray  hog 
and  feed  him,  aint  it?" 

"  Certainly." 

By  this  time  the  greedy  creature  began  to  show  symp 
toms  of  choking,  and  my  friend's  design  became  clearer. 

"  And  it's  Christian  charity,"  he  continued,  letting 
down  the  bars,  and  stepping  in  as  the  hog  rolled  upon 
his  side,  "  not  to  let  your  neighbor  lose  his  critters  by 
choking,  it  you  can  kill  'em  in  time  to  save  their  meat, 
ain't  it  ?" 

•'  Certainly." 

"Wai!"  said  he,  cutting  the  animal's  throat,  "you 
can  send  word  to  the  owner  of  that  pork  to  come  and 
take  it  away,  and  if  he  don't  like  to  salt  down  at  a  min 
ute's  notice,  he'll  keep  the  rest  at  hum,  and  pay  you 
for  your  corn.  And  that's  the  way  the  deacon  sarved 
my  hogs,  darn  his  Jong  face,  and  I  eat  pork  till  I  was 
sick  of  the  sight  on't." 

A  bushel  of  corn  being  worth  about  six  shillings,  1 
had  paid  twice  the  worth  of  my  own  morning's  work  for 
this  very  Yankee  expedient.  My  neighbor  borrowed 
a  bag,  shouldered  his  grist,  and  trudged  off  to  the 
mill,  and  relinquishing  my  flail  to  Jem,  I  leaned  over 
the  fence  in  the  warm  autumn  sunshine,  and  with  my 
eyes  on  the  swift  yet  still  bosom  of  the  river  below, 
fell  to  wondering,  as  1  said  before,  whether  the  hour 
of  which  I  have  given  you  a  picture,  was  a  fitting  link 
in  a  wise  man's  destiny,  The  day  was  one  to  give 
birth  to  great  resolves,  bright,  elastic,  and  genial ;  and 
the  leafless  trees,  so  lorn  and  comfortless  in  cloudier 
times,  seemed  lifting  into  the  sky  with  heroic  endu 
rance,  while  the  swollen  Owaga,  flowing  on  with  twice 
the  summer's  depth,  seemed  gathering  soul  to  defy  the 
fetters  of  winter.  There  was  something  inharmonious 
with  little  pursuits  in  everything  I  could  see.  Such 
air  and  sunshine,  I  thought,  should  overtake  one  in 
some  labor  of  philanthropy,  in  some  sacrifice  for 
friend  or  country,  in  the  glow  of  some  noble  composi 
tion,  or,  if  in  the  exercise  of  physical  energy,  at  least  to 
some  large  profit.  Yet  a  few  shillings  expressed  the 
whole  result  of  my  morning's  employment,  and  the 
society  by  which  my  thoughts  had  been  colored  were 
such  as  I  have  described.  Still  this  is  "farming,"  and 
so  lived  Cincinnatus. 

Now,  dear  Doctor,  you  can  be  grand  among  your 
gallipots,  and  if  your  eye  turns  in  upon  yourself,  you 
may  reflect  complacently  on  the  almost  sublime  ends 
of  the  art  of  healing ;  but  resolve  me,  if  you  please, 
•ny  little  problem.  What  state  of  the  weather  should 
I  live  up  to  ?  My  present  avocations,  well  enough  in 
i  gray  day,  or  a  rainy,  or  a  raw,  are  quite  put  out  of 
countenance  by  a  blue  sky  and  a  genial  sun.  If  it 
.vere  always  like  to-day,  I  should  be  obliged  to  seek 
distinction  in  some  way.  There  would  be  no  looking 
such  a  sky  in  the  face  three  days  consecutively,  bust 
ed  always  with  pigs  and  corn.  You  see  the  use  of  a 
icrmit  to  settle  such  points.  But  adieu,  while  I  have 
room  to  write  it. 


LETTER    TO    THE    UNKNOWN     PURCHASER    AND     NEXT 
OCCUPANT    OF    GLENMARY. 

SIR  :  In  selling  you  the  dew  and  sunshine  ordained 
.o  fall  hereafter  on  this  bright  spot  of  earth — the 
vaters  on  their  way  to  this  sparkling  brook — the  tints 
nixed  for  the  flowers  of  that  enamelled  meadow,  and 
he  songs  bidden  to  be  sung  in  coining  summers  by  ' 
he  feathery  builders  in  Glenmary,  I  know  not  whether 
o  wonder  more  at  the  omnipou>ncf  of  money,  or  at 
my  own  impertinent  audacity  toward  Nature.  How 
you  can  buy  the  right  to  exclude  at  will  every  other 
creature  made  in  God's  image  from  sitting  by  this 
)rook,  treading  on  that  carpet  of  flowers,  or  lying  lis- 
ening  to  the  birds  in  the  shade  of  these  glorious  trees 


32 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


— how  I  can  sell  it  you,  is  a  mystery  not  understood 
by  the  Indian,  and  dark,  I  must  say  to  me. 

"Lord  of  the  soil,"  is  a  title  which  conveys  your 
privileges  but  poorly.  You  are  master  of  waters  flow 
ing  at  this  moment,  perhaps,  in  a  river  of  Judea,  or 
floating  in  clouds  over  some  spicy  island  of  the  tropics, 
bound  hither  after  many  changes.  There  are  lilies 
and  violets  ordered  for  you  in  millions,  acres  of  sun 
shine  in  daily  instalments,  and  dew  nightly  in  propor 
tion.  There  are  throats  to  be  tuned  with  song,  and 
wings  to  be  painted  with  red  and  gold,  blue  and  yel 
low;  thousands  of  them,  and  all  tributaries  to  you. 
Your  corn  is  ordered  to  be  sheathed  in  silk,  and  lifted 
high  to  the  sun.  Your  grain  is  to  be  duly  bearded 
and  stemmed.  There  is  perfume  distilling  for  your 
clover,  and  juices  for  your  grasses  and  fruits.  Ice 
will  be  here  for  your  wine,  shade  for  your  refreshment 
at  noon,  breezes  and  showers  and  snow-flakes;  all  in 
their  season,  and  all  "  deeded  to  you  for  forty  dollars 
the  acre !  Gods !  what  a  copyhold  of  property  for  a 
fallen  world  !" 

Mine  has  been  but  a  short  lease  of  this  lovely  and 
well-endowed  domain  (the  duration  of  a  smile  of  for 
tune,  five  years,  scarce  longer  than  a  five-act  play) ; 
but  as  in  a  play  we  sometimes  live  through  a  life, 
it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  lived  a  life  at  Glenmary. 
Allow  me  this,  and  then  you  must  allow  me  the  priv 
ilege  of  those  who,  at  the  close  of  life,  leave  something 
behind  them :  that  of  writing  out  my  loill.  Though  I 
depart  this  life,  I  would  fain,  like  others,  extend  my 
ghostly  hand  into  the  future ;  and  if  wings  are  to  be 
borrowed  or  stolen  where  I  go,  you  may  rely  on  my 
hovering  around  and  haunting  you,  in  visitations  not 
restricted  by  cock-crowing. 

Trying  to  look  at  Glenmary  through  your  eyes,  sir, 
I  see  too  plainly  that  I  have  not  shaped  my  ways  as  if 
expecting  a  successor  in  my  lifetime.  I  did  not,  I  am 
free  to  own.  I  thought  to  have  shuffled  off  my  mor 
tal  coil  tranquilly  here ;  flitting  at  last  in  company 
with  some  troop  of  my  autumn  leaves,  or  some  bevy 
of  spring  blossoms,  or  with  snow  in  the  thaw ;  my 
tenants  at  my  back,  as  a  landlord  may  say.  I  have 
counted  on  a  life-interest  in  the  trees,  trimming  them 
accordingly  ;  and  in  the  squirrels  and  birds,  encour 
aging  them  to  chatter  and  build  and  fear  nothing ;  no 
guns  permitted  on  the  premises.  I  have  had  my  will 
of  this  beautiful  stream.  I  have  carved  the  woods  into 
a  shape  of  my  liking.  I  have  propagated  the  despised 
sumach  and  the  persecuted  hemlock  and  "pizen  lau 
rel."  And  "  no  end  to  the  weeds  dug  up  and  set  out 
again,"  as  one  of  my  neighbors  delivers  himself.  I 
have  built  a  bridge  over  Glenmary  brook,  which  the 
town  looks  to  have  kept  up  by  "  the  place,"  and  we 
have  plied  free  ferry  over  the  river,  I  and  my  man 
Tom,  till  the  neighbors,  from  the  daily  saving  of  the 
two  miles  round,  have  got  the  trick  of  it.  And  be 
twixt  the  aforesaid  Glenmary  brook  and  a  certain 
muddy  and  plebeian  gutter  formerly  permitted  to  join 
company  with,  and  pollute  it,  I  have  procured  a  di 
vorce  at  much  trouble  and  pains,  a  guardian  duty  en 
tailed  of  course  on  my  successor. 

First  of  all,  sir,  let  me  plead  for  the  old  trees  of 
Glenmary  !  Ah  !  those  friendly  old  trees  !  The  cot 
tage  stands  belted  in  with  them,  a  thousand  visible 
from  the  door,  and  of  stems  and  branches  worthy  of  the 
great  valley  of  the  Susquehannah.  For  how  much 
music  played  without  thanks  am  I  indebted  to  those 
leaf-organs  of  changing  tone  ?  for  how  many  whisper 
ings  of  thought  breathed  like  oracles  into  my  ear?  for 
how  many  new  shapes  of  beauty  moulded  in  the 
leaves  by  the  wind  ?  for  how  much  companionship, 
solace,  and  welcome  ?  Steadfast  and  constant  is  the 
countenance  of  such  friends,  God  be  praised  for  then- 
staid  welcome  and  sweet  fidelity !  If  I  love  them  bet 
ter  than  some  things  human,  it  is  no  fault  of  am- 
bitiousness  in  the  trees.  They  stand  where  they  did. 
But  in  recoiling  from  mankind,  one  may  find  them  the 


next  kindliest  things,  and  be  glad  of  dumb  friendship. 
Spare  those  old  trees,  gentle  sir! 

In  the  smooth  walk  which  encircles  the  meadow  be 
twixt  that  solitary  Olympian  sugar-maple  and  the  mar 
gin  of  the  river,  dwells  a  portly  and  venerable  toad  ; 
who  (if  I  may  venture  to  bequeath  you  my  friends) 
must  be  commended  to  your  kindly  consideration. 
Though  a  squatter,  he  was  noticed  in  our  first  rambles 
along  the  stream,  five  years  since,  for  his  ready  civility 
in  yielding  the  way,  not  hurriedly,  however,  nor  with 
an  obsequiousness  unbecoming  a  republican,  but  de 
liberately  and  just  enough  ;  sitting  quietly  on  the  grass 
till  our  passing  by  gave  him  room  again  on  the  warm 
and  trodden  ground.  Punctually  after  the  April 
cleansing  of  the  walk,  this  jewelled  habitue,  from  his 
indifferent  lodgings  hard  by,  emerges  to  take  his  pleas 
ure  in  the  sun ;  and  there,  at  any  hour  when  a  gentle 
man  is  likely  to  be  abroad,  you  may  find  him,  patient 
on  his  os  coccygis,  or  vaulting  to  his  asylum  of  high 
grass.  This  year,  he  shows,  I  am  grieved  to  remark, 
an  ominous  obesity,  likely  to  render  him  obnoxious  to 
the  female  eye,  and,  with  the  trimness  of  his  shape, 
has  departed  much  of  that  measured  alacrity  which 
first  won  our  regard.  He  presumes  a  little  on  your 
allowance  for  old  age;  and  with  this  pardonable  weak 
ness  growing  upon  him,  it  seems  but  right  that  his 
position  and  standing  should  be  tenderly  made  known 
to  any  new-comer  on  the  premises.  In  the  cutting  of 
the  next  grass,  slice  me  not  up  my  fat  friend,  sir!  nor 
set  your  cane  down  heedlessly  in  his  modest  domain. 
He  is  "mine  ancient,"  and  I  would  fain  do  him  a 
good  turn  with  you. 

For  my  spoilt  family  of  squirrels,  sir,  I  crave  nothing 
but  immunity  from  powder  and  shot.  They  require 
coaxing  to  come  on  the  same  side  of  the  tree  with 
you,  and  though  saucy  to  me,  I  observe  that  they  com 
mence  acquaintance  invariably  with  a  safe  mistrust. 
One  or  two  of  them  have  suffered,  it  is  true,  from  too 
hasty  a  confidence  in  my  greyhound  Maida,  but  the 
beauty  of  that  gay  fellow  was  a  trap  against  which  na 
ture  had  furnished  them  with  no  warning  instinct  ! 
(A  fact,  sir,  which  would  prettily  point  a  moral !)  The 
large  hickory  on  the  edge  of  the  lawn,  and  the  black 
walnut  over  the  shoulder  of  the  flower-garden,  have 
been,  through  my  dynasty,  sanctuaries  inviolate  for 
squirrels.  I  pray  you,  sir,  let  them  not  be  "reformed  , 
out,"  under  your  administration. 

Of  our  feathered  connexions  and  friends,  we  are 
most  bound  to  a  pair  of  Phebe-birds  and  a  merry  Bob- 
o'-Lincoln,  the  first  occupying  the  top  of  the  your>«; 
maple  near  the  door  of  the  cottage,  and  the  latter  ex 
ecuting  his  bravuras  upon  the  clump  of  alder-busht  s 
in  the  meadow,  though,  in  common  with  many  a  ga^  - 
plumaged  gallant  like  himself,  his  whereabout  after  dark 
is  a  dark  mystery.  He  comes  every  year  from  his  rice- 
plantation  in  Florida  to  pass  the  summer  at  Glenmary. 
Pray  keep  him  safe  from  percussion-caps,  and  let  no 
urchin  with  a  long  pole  poke  down  our  trusting  Phe- 
bes;  anmials  in  that  same  tree  for  three  summers. 
There  are  humming-birds,  too,  whom  we  have  com 
plimented  and  looked  sweet  upon,  but  they  can  not  be 
identified  from  morning  to  morning.  And  there  is  a 
golden  oriole  who  sings  through  May  on  a  dog-wood 
tree  by  the  brook-side,  but  he  has  fought  shy  of  o'jr 
crumbs  and  coaxing,  and  let  him  go  !  We  are  males 
for  his  betters,  with  all  his  gold  livery .'  "With  these 
reservations,  sir,  I  commend  the  birds  to  your  friend 
ship  and  kind  keeping. 

And  now,  sir,  I  have  nothing  else  to  ask,  save  or.ly 
your  watchfulness  over  the  small  nook  reserved  from 
this  purchase  of  seclusion  and  loveliness.  In  the  sha 
dy  depths  of  the  small  glen  above  you,  among  the  wild- 
flowers  and  music,  the  music  of  the  brook  babbling 
over  rocky  steps,  ia,  a  spot  sacred  to  love  and  memo 
ry.  Keep  it  inviolate,  and  as  much  of  the  happiness 
of  Glenmary  as  we  can  leave  behind,  stay  with  you  for 
recompense ! 


